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Possible EU Embargo on Pentium III
A reader writes "The brand new and yet unreleased STOA report (European Union Technical Committee) recommends an inquiry of the possible roles of the NSA [?] and the FBI [?] in the creation of Pentium III serial number. Possible consequences could be an European Union [?] -wide embargo against Pentium III-powered equipment. Read the scoop here. The article is in German, use our beloved BabelFish. " Just a note: this potential embargo not in place - it's just a possibility. But given recent Echelon fears, this is interesting news.
Don't you just love those enlightened governments in Europe who give lip service to free trade, but are unwilling to let their people make decisions for themselves?
Here's a clue guys, let the market decide. If people are really in a tizzy about this, they won't buy the chips. If they don't care (like me), they will. See? It works out fine that way, and no government intervention needed.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
I always knew they had taste.
Insert something about US not caring about privacy rights here.
But why use BabelFish for something about England? No primary source?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Looks like the article is offline? I get a database error.
I think that this should have been done a long time ago. What always happens is that whenever a privacy breach occurs, there is a huge public outcry. After a while it dies down.
BUT, the offending product still remains, and NO REAL ACTION is taken.
It'd good on the EU to see this change. For once, a credible world body is giving attention to privacy, and this is a Good Thing.
Now that some REAL ACTION is being taken, maybe people will stop making offending products so that they won't end up on the wrong end of some embargo.
do you know what kind of embedded code it would take to effectively eavesdrop from the cpu? more than could be squeezed in with no one noticing, that's for sure.
Now that is a boycott worth paying attention to. It would be impossible for Intel to ignore the possibility of using the entire European market.
Could this actually be under the "Your Rights Online" heading?
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
If there's to be an embargo on the Pentium III, it should not cover systems preloaded with operating systems which disable the serial number on start up, and make it difficult for new software installations to arrange for it to be re-enabled on boot.
Now, that's not Windows, but another operating system close to all our hearts...
(Seriously, this is of course a silly suggestion. I'd sooner see a lot more attention paid to big databases than this sort of nonsense.)
--
Xenu loves you!
Who's willing to bet that a few people at AMD are nearly peeing in their pants over such news?
Suppose I walk into a store with a disguise. Fake beard moustache, wig, colored contacts, teeth, fake id to match. I then decide to buy a PIII enabled computer with cash and leave the store. Drive to some desolate location and take off and burn said desguise. I drive home and presto suddently even if that serial number gets out no one has any idea that it was me (mystery person) who bought it. See look ma no fear here.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
Yea, right. Just two bullies( various Euro.
intelligence agencies vs. U.S. counterparts )
fighting over who gets to beat up the smaller
kids.
The serial number in processors is presented to us in several different ways. Intel promotes it as a more secure way to do e-business. Privacy advocates label it as a tool for the devil.
The truth is that your computer is filled with unique numbers on hardware (HDD, BIOS, MAC-address on your network card, some graphics cards), all of which are much easier to check (they cannot be disabled), and much easier to use for privacy invasion or to secure e-business.
I think it's sad to hear that high officials now want to use the fear for another serial in hardware as excuse to boycot a company, their decisions based on pure FUD. Which is what it is.
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the pun is mightier than the sword
A European wide sales embargo on Intel PIII would mean that AMD's K7 would have that market to itself... That would be a wet dream come true for AMD, I guess.
IF the embargo comes, and I must say I find it unlikely, it's a good thing that AMD makes excellent processors. There aren't any big European processor manufacturers that I know of, so this can't be some new brilliant protectionist policy.
I don't mind being considered an intelligent consumer. I do mind you claiming that any of the people I've done consulting for in the last two years can think for themselves when it comes to processor choices. You do realize, of course, that most of them don't even know what a Pentium is ... as opposed to just being some chip thingy in a computer thingy that does Word faster, right? Anyway, I think maybe its a good idea for a government who feels that another is being bad to inform its consumers this way. You can't buy house paint with lead in it. Why not? Why not let consumers decide if they want lead in their paint? Why not let the market decide if mercury in your water is bad for you or not? Why not let people decide if they want to buy irradiated food or apples washed with deadly chemicals? Because consumers want experts to protect them against potentially dangerous practices of unscrupulous persons and corporations who are capable of anything given their mass wealth. Consider the US constitution; why does it allow for personal use of firearms? Specifically, there is provision for a rogue government and the need to protect one's self ... but there is encouragement to have militias so that this can be done by those trained to do so properly. If it comes down to it, I won't buy Pentiums with serial numbers, but I'd rather have my government (Canada) decide that the NSA or CIA involvement is a bad thing and protect consumers from those issues. I don't personally feel that processor serial numbers are anywhere near as serious as mercury in water -- the point is that a generalistic statement like yours needs to be considered in context!
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
...it should be up to the user to take the risk?
What happened to consumer choice?
Anyway, with current trends, EU directives mean very little anyway, I can't imagine anyone actually sticking to this one, regardless of the pivacy implications.
I for one don't particularly want to add an athlon to the pIII450 I have in my current dual motherboard. Nor do I want to forsake the hardware I already have to buy new 'non serialed' stuff.
Sucky... particularly with all the other privacy issues flying around at the moment that *never* get talked about!
If this was say, Ericson or Alcatel instead of Intel, you can bet there would be no such talk.. The fact that Intel is american as apple pie is definitly a factor.. However, if the final outcome is Intel dropping the stupid serial numbers, good..
Most of MS's OSs (recent ones) are only supported on Intel machines. You could run linux or something else but the level of support is lacking for non x86 based machines. Try comparing versions of various utilities and programs on x86 and other chips there is a difference and it's usually the x86 gets first priority and the rest get shafted.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
The P3 serial number clearly violates European Law on privacy. Never mind the "free trade" argument someone else gave, if someone breaks the law, they don't deserve absolute freedom of trade.
Also, the P3 serial number disabling software doesn't always work, from what I've heard. And who's to say that Intel don't have some kind of "back door", which would let the NSA or FBI get the serial number anyway? Back doors are easy!
No, this calls for a total ban, though the British will probably take it to the European Courts to try and get any ban overturned. (After all, the British are involved in the SIGINT project, and any loss of intelligence, which could be profitable to them, would not be good.)
The Germans, though, are a force to be reckoned with. They have the most influential bank, one of the strongest economies, and most of the top indstries, without which Europe would not survive. And most of those will be people all too happy to deprive US competitors of vital intelligence, such as contracts under negotiation, trade secrets, confidential reports, etc.
I think it's great if Europe can collectively stand up and tell Intel where to stick the P3, and the US intelligence community what it can do with it's unlawful spy network.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I do mind you claiming that any of the people I've done consulting for in the last two years can think for themselves when it comes to processor choices. You do realize, of course, that most of them don't even know what a Pentium is ... as opposed to just being some chip thingy in a computer thingy that does Word faster, right?
So, what's wrong with that? It's not like the information is out there on Pentium alternatives. If you are going to throw down the cash for a computer and don't do some investigating first, is it really the government's job to stop you from doing something stupid?
You can't buy house paint with lead in it. Why not? Why not let consumers decide if they want lead in their paint?
Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try our new foo paint, now with extra lead! Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money back!
Why not let the market decide if mercury in your water is bad for you or not?
Well, unlike the CPU market, most water utilities have monopolies, at least I can see this one...
Why not let people decide if they want to buy irradiated food...
I'm all for irradiated food, as it destroys those nasty bacteria and all. Ask the EU about GM food though... geez...
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Have you read the introduction? It clearly states that no embargo is in place. So free trade is stil l in place.
You cannot buy a PIII without the serial number, so consumer choice is limited.
No government intervention is needed? What about no NSA/FBI intervention is needed.
This is a publicity stunt. The fact that it is being done by a collection of governments doesn't negate that fact. They're testing the waters.. they are playing "paper tiger" politics. Let them.
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Is there some transposition of the terms blockade and embargo?
An embargo is when a mfgr/supplier refuses to sell a product to a potential customer.
A blockade is when a government(or governments) refuse(s) to allow a product into a country(or countries).
While I'm at it, a boycott is when someone refuses to buy a product (or refuses to buy a product from a particular source).
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
According to some reports I've seen, the random number generator in the Pentium III may be flawed generating numbers that appear random, but aren't. I personally don't know how true that is, but considering the news a few months ago about the secret NSA key in Microsoft Windows, there may a grain of truth to the random number generator in the Pentium III being suspect.
IF there's a faulty random number generator in the Pentium III, anything encrypted based on numbers from the generator are vulnerable and could be cracked by anyone knowing the patterns in the pseudo-random sequence.
Bottom line is that one should be very wary of the Pentium III; what you don't know could hurt you!
So, unlike your comments w.r.t. MP3 copying, you now believe that certain companies don't have the right to do anything they wish (utilities)?
...
At any rate, you ignored my comments outright -- no, consumers would buy lead paint because they did long before it was banned
- Michael T. Babcock <homepage>
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
We don't have a problem giving the NSA land to build their golf balls, but we do have a problem if they have a say as to what numbers they use on processors.
Sometimes these European Decisions are somewhat strange...
Is the next move going to be for the EU to boycott all network interface cards? How about a boycott of all GUID generation? This is moving towards rediculous. As was said by a previous poster, let the market decide, not the governments.
I've often wondered why every CPU didn't have a software addressable serial number from the very beginning. It would have made the copy protection wars from the '80s a lot less interesting. I'm sure a lot of people are going to flame for me taking this attitude, but it's valid. If a company wants to protect it's property by only allowing it to run on one CPU, then it should be their perogative.
If people don't like, or refuse to use, software that is bound to one CPU, then a vendor will rise up to fill the market nitch. Who knows, maybe Open Source will gain even more appeal in a situation like this.
World Beach List, my latest project.
>>For once, a credible world body is giving attention to privacy, and this is a Good Thing.
The EU is just offended that the FBI and NSA could be involved in stepping on their toes. The EU should be the only ones able to spy on residents of Europe.
If you were to walk/drive/bike around London you could be tracked by video surveillance equipment every step of the way.
The EU is no hero for the cause of privacy.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
K.
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-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
I am dumping all my loot in AMD! :-)
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
There are serious differences in how Americans view privacy versus how Europeans view it.
For example, the credit rating agencies that collect financial information in the US on individuals are absolutely illegal in Belgium.
Except for a well-regulated database maintained by the National Bank on individuals who are behind more than 3 consecutive instalments on a personal loan, there is not one single publicly available, or against payment, financial database on individuals, because that's against the law.
It's also against the law to share or sell databases with information on individuals.
I don't understand how you can justify the buying and selling of information on private individuals, without their explicit consent. As far as I am concerned, I strongly believe that my private information is my personal property, and no one is allowed to trade in it, or disclose it otherwise, without asking me first for permission. I alone hold the copyright on my personal information, and I can assure you that I will prosecute any company that dares to disclose personal information on me to the maximum extent possible under the law, and I am sure that the amount in fines and punitive damages would drive this kind of company out of business right away.
If Intel manages to associate its serial number to my name, and then this serial number to any other personal information ot transactions I do online, they will very soon have to say goodbye to doing business in Europe.
If you have the source to your OS, you could either prevent your apps getting at the ID, or *even better* return your own choice of ID :)
As for random number generation, can I interest you in a noisy diode? Attach it to a DAC (Sound card'll do) and you're sorted.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
No such right exists under US law, although a right to privacy has been inferred on the basis of, for example, the fourth amendment. One consequence of this is that Americans take for granted a degree of corporate -- as opposed to governmental -- intrusion in their private affairs that would cause outrage in most of Europe. (And the European position is that at least the government is democratically accountable ...)
A lot of US companies act in a manner that would be flat-out illegal in other parts of the world, in much the same way that it would be illegal for a European company to try to do business in the US in a manner that, for example, was calculated to blow away the first amendment rights of their customers.
Over the past year, the EU member states have been trying to tighten up on the observation of the right to privacy, making it illegal to export personal data to countries with weaker protection (among other things). This would appear to be a rather dumb attempt to clamp down on what are seen as technologies of privacy invasion. (I say "rather dumb" because of course no equivalent attempt is being made to clamp down on sales of eeevil ethernet boards with embedded 48-bit ID's!)
While I think this action is misdirected, I happen (as a European) to think that privact is valuable. In particular, there should be no invasion of privacy without accountability. Intel is just the latest company (remember RealNetworks, last week?) to get their fingers burned by dismissing privacy as an issue. It isn't a matter of personal preference; it's a fundamental right.
With something like this being looked @ by the EU, you can bet a certain company w/ a 3 letter abbreviation is all smiles. Even if it doesn't pass, the negative press for Intel will still be welcomed.
I never liked the PIII I.D. scheme anyways. Even if it could be disabled, the fact that it exists @ all irks me...
Tom
We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. -- Ben Franklin, July 4th, 1776
If the NSA/Intel connection does in fact exist, or their is sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that it does, then the European Union is only acting to protect their own (inter)national security and economic interests in banning the product. Their concern isn't necessarilly that the numbers exist, but the reason they were put there. Remember, they have already had industrial secrets stolen from their companies and given to their US competitors by the NSA, costing them real money and real jobs. With no sign that the NSA is at all repentant about what they've done, but rather that to all appearances they are pushing forward with even more intrusive and draconian approaches to gathering information, their concern is entirely warrented and their reaction very reasonable, even (one might argue) quite muted.
Why would Intel serailize the CPU, with all these other "unique numbers on hardware" already present in every computer sold? Why on earth create yet another number for no (apparent) reason? The answer is obvious: serializing the CPU makes not just the computer, but the work that has ever been done on it, easilly traceable in ways MMAC addresses and HD serial numbers cannot. A word document written five years in the past can, on a serialized PII/PIII, be traced to a particular computer. It was this misfeature that led to the identification and arrest of the author of Melissa Virus. While I'm glad he was arrested, I must confess I am much more concerned about my own loss of privacy than I am in offsetting the terrible threat the Melissa idiot ever posed to me.
An MMAC address, BIOS or HD serial number, is at most only traceable while the machine is on-line. They do not get embedded into the aforementioned word document the way the intel CPU serialization did. This demonstrates that the "big brother" ramifications of CPU serialization are quite different (and apparently more significant) than those associated with unique MMAC or IP addresses, or BIOS serial numbers. And who is to say future generations of PIII hardware will even allow the OS to disable their serialization functions?
The Europeans are rightly concerned with respect to their privacy and attempts by our secret organizations to subvert it. They are also very lucky, in that, unlike us, they have governments which actively work to protect their rights and liberties.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Do I have your permission to call you stupid?
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
If we ban the PIII because of the PSN, lets go for banning ethernet cards (MAC addresses), too.
I feel that I must strongly applaud the European Uion for its actions as this is a matter of NATIONAL SECURITY. Can you imagine the intelligence value of uniquely identifying every computer-generated message? While the serial number might not have had the involvement of the FBI or the National Security Agency, the EU are correct in realizing the potenital diseaster it could have if it chose to adopt a technology that is almost a "phone bug" for general use.
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I seem to recall IPv6 will include the MAC address of your NIC, which makes it easy to track most internet users (not us /.'ers who have a bunch of spare NE2000's floating around, though).
George
>>"You can't buy house paint with lead in it. Why >>not? Why not let consumers decide if they want >>lead in their paint? "
>Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first >place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try >our new foo paint, now with extra lead! >Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money >back!
For the youngsters out there, lead is was put in paint for any number of good reasons. Some colours are easier to achieve with it, and more importantly it results in a smoother finish on the coat of paint, with drips and brushstrokes less of a problem. I'm sure technology has moved on since lead was banned, but when it was first banned it represented something of a step back from the painters point of view.
Of course it's a bit on the poisonous side, too.
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My point is that most people on the intel design team would notice. Furethermore, can you imagine how hard it would be to write code that would figure out how to simply contact big brother, let alone eavesdrop on something?
With the x86, PowerPC (and probably all others too) there is no such thing as truly random number generation. If you learn C or C++ you find this out. The "Random Number Generator" must be given a "seed" to produce pseudo random numbers.
When given a seed, numbers are generated in a fashion that "looks" random, but is not. If you give a program the same seed it will spit the same "random" numbers back out at you. What prevents this from happening is that many programs use the clock as a variable seed for random number generation. If you know the second when the clock was accessed, then you know the seed, from there you can reverse engineer any "random" numbers generated.
Even if you only know the minute you can make 60 tries to get the seed. If you're talking industrial espoinage it's well worth the time. If you'retalking about a government agency with millions upon millions of dollars at their disposal it's not a big deal.
True "randomness" is difficult to achieve, but I'd need a real math guru to explain it coherantly, because I can not.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Keep it up.
Your final point about the Athlon is very good; it may point out opportunities to profit from buying AMD if Intel doesn't cave.
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
They do not need to embed code or do anything that fancy. All they need to do is use the number to find out where you bought the chip, and thus, find out WHO you are!
Then all they need are good old fashioned wiretaps and bugs. Thats assuming that you are someone that the FBI or NSA would be interested in knowing more about.
I have a problem with the idea of a goverment prohibiting people from buying something like this.
If they have a concern, they're perfectly within their rights to issue public notices saying "We don't trust these guys, we won't buy their products, etc.", but actually using the threat of force (a ban) to keep people from buying intel crap is wy out of line.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try our new foo paint, now with extra lead! Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money back!
Why would they bother telling you that there's lead in the paint? If you remove government controls, what company is going to inform their customers about all the harmful properties of their product?
Intolerant people should be shot.
What is obvious is that Intel has a problem with chip theft and they would like to be able to recover stolen property. Being able to prove that a given CPU was in fact stolen on such-and-such a date from this plant / truck / warehouse is essential to having a case. This is one absolutely legit use of the PSN. (What isn't legit is the ease of turning it back on after it has been turned off, which appears to be aimed at letting the computer "rat out" its owner and allow Intel to sniff documents or the Internet for traces of stolen chips. That much was done badly.)
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Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Sounds like sensationalist nonsense to me. A journalist putting two and two together and making twenty-seven. This is a *technical* committee. The worst (for Intel) that could happen is that they recommend that EU departments and companies don't rely on the P-III's internal goodies in their crypto tools Yes, it *could* lead to an embargo, but then it *could* be that genetic engineers develop pigs with wings.
ahh.. the conspiracy theorists at large again.
I wonder how many NIC cards they use in Europe? God forbid, they all have Unique addresses!!!
Do they drive cars? Oh, my, my, my, they all have unique VIN numbers...
And, oh my god, even my house has a unique address!!! The government must be watching my house!!! Big brother is watching!!!
(actually, they may be... I have DOD clearance).
And they even *assign* us unique social-security-#'s!!!
...
Oh, but what happens when I sell my "old" PIII system to my friend for $100 3 years from now?? Or my motherboard fries and I swap motherboards?
Where are the records to say what CPU serial# is in the CPU that I bought??
Face it, if they really want to know what *YOU* are doing, specifically.... well:
a) you are probably doing something you shouldn't.
b) it probably much easier for them to tap your phone line/network connection and decode what you are doing straight from there.
c) with the technology they have already, they can watch everything that displays on your monitor... can tap every connection you have, including cell-phone traffic... whats the big deal even if they *DID* have another way to watch you?
Well, first off, if your encryption uses any built-in random number generator, toss it, it's crap.
Any good encryption program generates it's own random numbers from a random input source. PGP did this (still does, AFAIK) by getting keystrokes from the user, and using timings between them to generate a randomized sequence.
If a program uses the clock as the seed, it's probably not using a second, BTW, but the tick timer. There's a lot of ticks in a second.
Still, it's not an infinite number, and a good way to crack any encryption is to attack the random number generator. If you know the seed, you can generate the same key, and decrypt the message.
I recall that back on the C64, whenever I needed a good random number (the built in one was crap), I turned on one of the sound channels, set it to generate a lot of static, turned the volume off, and grabbed a number from the static. Worked pretty well, and didn't need a seed value. Still not truly random, but good enough.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You'll need a way of conditioning the random number output to remove bias. Fortunately, the Linux kernel contains an excellent such conditioner. Simply cat the output from your noisy diode/soundard combination to /dev/random, and read from /dev/random whenever you need random stuff. That way you get lots of other sources of randomness thrown in the mix for free.
--
Xenu loves you!
Even if the P3's random number generator (RNG) is flawed, it still can be useful as an input of entropy into Linux's /dev/random driver. The way the /dev/random driver works is that there's a pool of entropy, into which inputs are mixed. The more stuff you mix in, the harder it is to predict what's in the entropy pool. If you mix in something completely predictable --- say, all zeros, or all ones, at worse it just doesn't add any entropy to the pool. If there's any amount of unpredictability in the P3's RNG, though, it can be a useful addition to the linux /dev/random Driver.
It's most likely that the P3 RNG is flawed in some way, so that its output is baised one way or the other. The simplest kind of bias is one where the 60% of the bits are ones, but there are more complicated kind of biases. For example, there might be a 60Hz component in the output, that would be noticeable if you ran a FFT over it. But the wonderful thing about the way the /dev/random driver works is this doesn't really matter, since the outputs of the P3 RNG is only going to get mixed into the entropy pool. The only question is how much entropy "credit" to give when you mix inputs from the P3. If you're really paranoid, you can mix in 0 bits of credit, in which case you're no worse off than if you weren't using the P3, and possibly better off.
The worst case scenario is one where Intel has completely lied, and is using (for example) the P3 serial number plus the time as a seed into some fixed function, and the RNG isn't really an RNG at all, but a total trapdoor to allow the NSA to guess session keys easily. I find this hard to believe, though, for two reasons. First, it would imply that Intel was really deeply enmeshed into the NSA and/or the FBI, and while some conspiracy theorists might believe that, I have trouble believing it. Secondly, Intel has far too much to lose. If they did something like this, the chances that the secret would eventually leak is just far too high (in fact, almost a certaininty) and once it did, Intel would never be trusted again. I don't believe that Intel would ever be quite that stupid, the mistakes the DVD consortium made notwithstanding.
This story (link on the same page) says that China has banned Pentium IIIs already, fearing espoinage from the USA. Moreover, Win98 has been declared a "danger property" due to security holes and is now forbidden as well =)
If for natural US citizens it is outrageous to have an ID code, for me that have nothing to do with either the FBI, CIA or whatever, its espionage.
Ummm... Probably after this i will never be able to enter the USA.
If the EU is going to ban the PIII, it should also consider banning the Windows OS, both because it is so insecure that anyone using it is laying themselves wide open to break ins, and also because until such time as MS open-sources it, it is only prudent to assume they (and the NSA) have a backdoor.
Pick any relatively unimportant thing and blow it up.
This should be a slogan of mass-media these days. What's up with some people? PIII serial number. So what? There's heaps and loads of stuff (in our area of interest) that's zillion times more important than this.
Hmm.. must be some deep politics there, I guess.
Anyway. Bans such as this are ineffective. "Money talks" you know...
EG: 500MHz+ cpu's were strictly speaking banned to export to here where I live. At least until recently. So what? They were selling on every conner.
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9x's: Suxx, bugs and plug'n'play
C.
I sometimes write stuff
An embargo on Pentum IIIs??? This got to be one of the most stupid things I've heard lately. Even putting aside the fact that all network cards have a factory built-in GUID, this idea is totally and completely unworkable. "You, sir, I see your computer has a PIII chip in it. I am afraid we cannot allow you to use this computer, sir." Not to mention the fact that, if implemented, this embargo will kill Europe's IT industry quicker than Windows gets to BSOD.
I suspect that some low-level French bureaucrat got drunk, forgot that Europe doesn't have a microprocessor industry and decided to stick it to those Yankee bastards. And privacy -- since when the EU gives a damn about privacy? Yes, I know about the laws that limit data gathering, but all these laws do nothing to limit the government's power -- and I'm still wary of the government much more than of corporations...
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I do not think the credit rating agencies are perfect, however you do have a choice. You can choose not to participate with credit agencies. Furthermore, did you ever consider that by denying credit reports to financial agencies that you are effectively denying credit opportunities to others. It is a credit history, which speaks volumes for how likely the individual is to pay up. Would you rather loan officers and creditors put more weight in how you act, dress, talk, etc? The 4Cs of credit? The laws in that you describe have serious consequences; a national bank which only discloses >3 missed consecutive payments is NOT enough information. In effect, you would (as EU nations do) remove the choice from the consumer, by removing many good credit opportunities and increasing the number of frauds. Atleast, in the US, you have the choice to participate in the system.
I think this Intel serial number debate is silliness too. I could understand if EU wishes full disclosure of such privacy issues; though, the P3 id is pretty insignificant. The consumer has multiple ways to restrict such information. Identifier is a RESOURCE. One that your software does not need to use. The consumer has a choice, as long as he is provided with pertinant information I have no problem with it. The government argument that it would affect EU national security on the aggregate if Joe Consumer were to buy it....well I just don't buy that. This strikes me as petty nationalism, a strike against Americanism, protectionism, in the name of "privacy". If the US were to take similar steps against, say, Toyota for putting GPS units in their cars (with the possibility for "tracking"), we never hear the end of it. These same people would call it racism and protectionism (et. al)--such hypocrisy.
Taste, maybe. Technical knowledge - no. Any gimp knows you can generate a Unique number for any computer in any of several ways. The serial number issue is dreamed up by the Oh Clueless ones.
A word document written five years in the past can, on a serialized PII/PIII, be traced to a particular computer. It was this misfeature that led to the identification and arrest of the author of Melissa Virus.
Not exactly. The tracing of Melissa was through a GUID (128-bit unique value) embedded in an infected document. GUIDs, in Win 95 (and probably Win 98 and NT4), are generated in part from the NIC's MAC address, and have nothing whatsoever to do with any CPU serial number.
So, the doc conceivably could be traced to a specific NIC which was in the machine of the virus's creator at the time the virus was created, but now may be in the machine of some innocent third party. If, in the future, MS changes its GUID generator to use CPU serial number, a doc could then, and only then, be traced to a specific CPU.
One other good area to look at is the troubles between the EU and the US on controls on companies selling your private details that they have extracted from you on to third party companies. The EU doesn't think its such a good idea for a bank (for instance) to see big lists of names and income details to the mail spammers so that they can direct market you with "buy this wonderful pen" offers.
The EU is having a big of an argy bargy with what happens to an EU citizens details once they hit an american companies computer.
C.
I sometimes write stuff
I hate to break this to you but any piece of software on your machine can generate a 128 bit Unique number and you wouldn't have a freaking clue. It's a software issue - not a hardware issue. I wish you and the EU would get a freaking clue.
it is amazing how much publicity the P3 serial number is getting when it has almost no use in any way, malicious or otherwise. look at any internet protocols. none of them have a spot for the P3 serial number reserved. if you were to grep all the documents you give out none of them would have the number in it. the number has to be read by software running on your personal machine. if you are running untrusted malicious binaries on your system then you have bigger problems. if you find a program which was grabbing the number then dont run that program or modify it. You ultimatly have complete control of all software running on your machine, you dont even need source, just edit out that opcode, if they use self-modifying code, fire up gdb.
There is no way to link this number to anything or use it as a trusted value in any way. since the software that ultimatly retrieves the number has to be running on your machine you can just fake any ID with some creative hex editing making it unuseful as a secret key or secure identifier. in any case CPUs are alot easier to swap than hard disks, and they already have unique identifiers. sorry for the semi-rant all the press about a PR stunt gone bad by intel gets to me after a while.
http://notanumber.net/
--
You imply that the EU spies, this is not true. The motivation to protect ones own citizens from foreign snooping should be present. Were I an elected member of a local council, I would be offended enough at the thought of a foreign nation gathering data on my constituents without their explicit knowledge or authorisation that I would do something about it.
You perceive Europe as a super-government, which it isn't. Europe's four main entities, the Council, Commission, Parliament and Court of Justice, deal directly with governments and legislatures, not with individuals. They initiate, debate, pass and enforce legislation with governments - not vis-a-vis individuals.
Directives which are passed by the EU are then enacted in each of the nation states by being passed as laws in those nation states. Europe has no FBI, no CIA and no NSA - it has loose bodies that try to co-ordinate the many national forces, but these bodies are neither funded by nor answerable to the EU - rather they are multi-national initiatives in their own right.
If you were to walk/drive/bike around London you could be tracked by video surveillance equipment every step of the way. The EU is no hero for the cause of privacy.
First of all, the centre of London being covered by cameras has absolutely nothing to do with the European Union - it has everything to do with the British Government and the Police Forces in London. The EU does not spy on it's citizens, individual governments do what they want so long as it isn't illegal or they don't get caught.
The EU as a separate entity doesn't police individuals (other than - perhaps - it's employees, hence the recent resignation of the entire Commission subsequent to a report on their working practices), it has neither the resources nor the remit.
The centre of London is indeed heavily laden with CCTV cameras. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is really material for another debate, where we can discuss the balance between catching rapists, thieves and murderers, and our right to not be spied upon by our respective governments. I think it's irrelevant here because you can't compare observing someone in the street to a foreign entity (government or otherwise) tracking their activities in a medium where they believe they have privacy.
Salocin.com
Finally there is a economic body that is capapable of standing up to the US Government. It is ironic that we require help from the germans to retain our inaliable rights. I say boycott US trade all together make us suffer maybe then US dictorial policy will change a bit.
It's amazing how countries can do complete role reversals in a single century. Think about it, in the first part of the 20th century Germany was supressing the rights of its citizens and the US intervened. Now at the end of the 20th century it is the US citizen requireing the help of Germany to retain our right to privacy. Wow maybe Germany will send its thousands of marines to invade our shores and overthrow the evil dictator Bill Clinton. So that in 50 years we can get back to the princples this country was founded on.
-AC
Just so you know this comment was written by a white male from a small town in Missouri and not a radical minority group. Stop taking away our damn freedoms!!!!
As others have said, it doesn't seem (to me, at least) like a *big* *deal* that computers are uniquely identifiable. (If I recall correctly, some workstations have had machine-readable serial numbers for quite some time; Sun-3's, for instance, IIRC).
/.er's are up in arms over liscense plates?
But, even supposing they could find that you purchased a cpu, and that said cpu was used to make a document or whatever, what has been proven? Not much--certainly not that a particular computer user did said actions. After all, the cpu has no way of really knowing who is typing away at the keyboard.
Further, maintaining a database of CPU ID's vs. consumers would be virtually impossible, with the number of consumer-level CPU vendors, the number of people selling computers, the number of times cpu's are swapped between machines in some environments, etc. etc.
Finally, assuming this is a document which is being tracked, what is to stop the paranoid user from changing the ID in the document? from saving it in some format which doesn't contain the ID? It will be hard to reliably track outrageous HTML code to the malefactor via a cpu ID.
Personally, I think the benefits outweigh the problems; it's really, really infuriating to have to look up codes to re-enable software after, say, upgrading one's operating system or getting a new hard drive or whatever. (Yes, I do use commercial software. Don't flame me and say that OSS is the only way to go; I daresay that there is no OSS package which is anywhere near as capable as, say, the Mentor Graphics suite, or Synopsys Design Compiler, or Lemmings, or....)
As has been pointed out already, cars also have unique identifying numbers; indeed, I am also required to have a small sign on my car which law enforcement types can use, in approximately real time, to determine who is responsible for said car. In fact, they can even use this information to bill me for any unpaid parking tickets or to track me down for arrest. Yet how many
Then just buy a motherboard where you can turn off the serial number feature in the BIOS setup.
The serial number thing is really one of stupidest misfeatures ever dreamed up, but its an opportunity for MB manufacturers to offer users a choice. Heck I could imagine a box with a privacy switch and two color LED -- when the LED is red, the MB reports a bogus number and when the LED is green it reports the real one.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
--
Actually if my meat has not been irradiated, I do it myself with microwave radiation or infrared radiation. I am reminded of a letter to the editor I saw in one of the PC-Magazines in the early 90's that asked why a computer monitor could not be designed that emitted no radiation. Of course the whole purpose of a computer monitor (like that of a light bulb) is to emit a particular type of radiation.
Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
(I left my cookies/password in my other computer.)
>>The EU does not spy on it's citizens, individual governments do what they want so long as it isn't illegal or they don't get caught.
I freely admit that I do not know the internal workings of the EU, and frankly I don't particularly care. The point that I was making is, where is the outrage when it's a European government trampling on privacy?
It's intellectually and ethically bankrupt to decry the abuses of private industry while ignoring the abuses of government.
>>I think it's irrelevant here because you can't compare observing someone in the street to a foreign entity (government or otherwise) tracking their activities in a medium where they believe they have privacy.
Companies don't have armies or armed police forces. I think that corporate intrusion of privacy, no matter how bad it may be, is not in the same league as a government doing it.
>>I think it's irrelevant here because you can't compare observing someone in the street to a foreign entity (government or otherwise) tracking their activities in a medium where they believe they have privacy.
Only a fool thinks that they have absolute privacy on the internet. Your e-mail can be read by a resourceful cracker/hacker/or system administrator. You surfing can be tracked by the same resourceful group, and because of the way that the internet works there isn't much than can be done about it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
"unwilling to let their people make decisions for themselves?" But this is a 'tragedy of the commons' type situation. It may be in each individual's interest to buy a Pentium III but the collective action of everyone in Europe buying Pentium III's may compromise national security making everyone worse off. I'm not saying PIII's compromise security - but it's only right that governments investigate whether it does - especially if the NSA or FBI are involved.
-- SIGFPE
>Just so you know this comment was written by a white
;)
>male from a small town in Missouri and not a radical
>minority group. Stop taking away our damn freedoms!!!!
Totally offtopic, but may I ask about US rules of "political correctness".
I mean - try to write/say "black female" and you're doomed. You should say "afroamerican", I guess. Also "pale-faces" should say "natives" not "indians". Get me right - I think that to certain degree it's right.
But it's pretty ok to say "white male". EG: On CNN - "murder is a white male". Yeah, I understand - the man is murder, so what? Male, huh!
PS: When you think homosexualism(gosh) will become lessons in school? Oh, dear.. and they call it "hate"
(Automoderator: Score: -3, Flamebate, troll, offtopic
"(From their Irish website.) Mind you, this highlights the fact that this isn't another silly trade war thing. Intel are a global company, and a boycott would hurt European commerce as well.
K."
Ireland is part of Britain which refused invitation into the EU, remember? It will hurt US and British economies but not EU.
$nyper
"Help me Obi-/.-Kenobi,your my only hope!" -$
offtopic: Was apple pie really invented after america was formed? was it really invented by americans? are (non-native) americans really american, or are they european? etc.
could someone please enlighten me on these issues?
Nick
PS Yes I did try calling and writing to the state telco regulator - not a single response.
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
"US military spy European Union companies STOA report of the technical committee of the EU throws electronic espionage to the USA forwards | Several billion euro are lost through ECHELON annually"
Harsh words!
This is a clear symptom of technocracy & bureaucracy. Both America and europe are changing from democracies into technocracies. The difference being that in the latter form you can still vote but it does not really matter what you vote. I'm very worried about this trend, since it will ultimately limit our freedom.
This decision (or attempt to do so) is late, intel launched the PIII months ago, by the time the decision will be taken (if ever) intel will be busy producing its next generation of cpu's.
It's also a technocratic decision since nobody (as far as I know) is asking for this decision. The EU people decided on its own (most likely with the help of some lobbying, amd?) that it might be a good idea to do this.
BTW. I think the trend of both the EU and the US changing into technocracies is caused by free market. So I don't think it would be a good idea to just let the market decide.
The free market serves only one interest: making as much money as you can. Free speech, privacy and human right are not a free market concern. Early this century we had free market, the results were horrible: big companies stressing their employers to the limit. Then we got labour movements, socialism and communism. After communism collapsed, capitalism became a little more socialistic (at least where I live).
Pure communism and pure capitalism are both a bad thing since they both suffer from the same problem: people are greedy and will try to abuse the system to suit their own needs. In the case of communism this leads to a repressive regime. In the case of capitalism it also leads to a repressive regime (taiwan, singapore, south korea).
"If people are really in a tizzy about this, they won't buy the chips"
One problem: most people lack the technical skills to make a well founded technical judgement of what this chip has to offer. Most users are not aware of the differences between a PII, a PII and a K7.
Personally I'm not so worried about this ID thing, there are other, easier ways to identify somebody. So, I think the EU is overreacting a little.
I think it is very well posible that the NSA made a deal about this ID with intel. At least I can't think of a good technical reason to introduce it and I refuse to believe that those intel guys are that clueless. So seen in this light, the european reaction is not so stupid.
Jilles
We put it up at John Young [who else) ist the US. Mirror. Futurezone experienced some datbase related problems recently. 'twas not the Slashdot effect
-e
At least the DEC KL10 had a serial number, and probably the entire PDP-10 line of processors. Ours were 2777 and 3159, if I remember correctly. We used 2777 as the entrance code for the student computer labs (don't bother trying to use it; we moved out of that lab in 1987). It used to be printed on the console during boot. I think it wasn't until TOPS-20 version 6 (1985) that the serial number could be read by user software, however (via the CONFG% system call), since the APRID instruction wasn't available from user mode.
I don't know about the rest of the DEC PDP family, but it seems reasonable that the PDP-11 had a readable serial number, and most certainly the VAX. Anybody who knows more? The PDP-8, which was the world's first mass-produced computer, most likely had a serial number, but it was probably only found on a bolted metal plate on the chassis, and not on some particular Flip Chip of the kind that made up the CPU...
So, why didn't serial numbers make it into the 4004 and other early microprocessors from the very beginning? Probably because the designers didn't consider them meaningful on individual chips that were to be produced by the millions. After all, the primary reason for having a serial number on any item was for the producer to be able to track malfunctioning devices back to their origin (quality control). For something as small and cheap as integrated circuits, a printed timestamp on the casing was found sufficient.
To a hacker, the ability to examine anything via software (including the serial number of the processor itself) is a nice feature, even if it's useless for any practical purpose. Therefore I don't mind serial numbers in processors.
The problem is with application software that makes use of such features in undocumented and perhaps unwanted ways. A word processor shouldn't add hidden data about me or my computer to every document I write, any more than a typewriter should stamp its serial number using invisible ink on every sheet of paper that passes through it (under Ceaucescu, Romanian secret police kept a type sample for every licensed typewriter in the country, to help them identify the origin of any illegal leaflets).
So, the EU (which I happen to live in) should make sure they aren't barking up the wrong tree when they start investigating Intel rather than software industry practices. As for the talk of sanctions, I very much agree that this issue should be a matter for consumers to decide. However, I'm all for investigating, if it leads to consumers becoming informed about the issues. I mean, the EU could try to stop me from ftp'ing any free software I like...
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
are you eating the paint? then don't worry about it.
If Europeans don't like spying then just get an angry mob/militia/army together and find the surveylance locations and storm them, destroy the equipment, and kill the people directly involved. That's called vigilante justice and it usually works.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I dont blame em. Win98 (95 and NT too!) is banned from all my computers for the same reason.
"The vehemente support of the US Government for the plans Intels excited special suspicions. Vice-president aluminium Gore had praised the seriennummer in the Jaenner as true miracle drug for the setting in motion of the e-Commerce in motion."
So now we know what "Al" stands for. This confirms my suspicions that he is in fact a robot.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Good time to buy some AMD stock? I'm sure the folks over at AMD would love it if an embargo actually went into place...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Really so if I work at intel there are men in black trenchcoats who are slithering around in R&D and the plants trying to put forth their secret agenda. Uhh.. huh.. and I suppose that the NSA has been able to securvent the Pope, all the heads of the major 1st world countries and is just creating wars to further their horrible truth.....To buy a large crate of....Pokemon cards right?
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I find this hard to believe, though, for two reasons. First, it would imply that Intel was really deeply enmeshed into the NSA and/or the FBI, and while some conspiracy theorists might believe that, I have trouble believing it.
How about if they are enmeshed with the SEC? Could you believe that? Their anti-trust suit didn't seem to make much of a splash did it?
I've said this before and I'll repeat it here. AT&T designed and manufactured a device that would make voice calls secure. You plugged it in between your handset and the phone and it used a 32bit DSP (which we had overclocked the hell out of), to encrypt the call. It was about the size of a Palm Pilot. I know this first hand. I helped build the things (I tested units as they came off the assembly line).
6 months later I helped open each unit and install a 'clipper' IC (read: a backdoor for the government to listen in to your call). The rumor was that the FBI had agreed to buy all the units already made in exchange for no more being built.
The US government bent AT&T to their will. Why should Intel stand where the communications giant couldn't?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
We have been wiping out whole nation for the later part of the century. So what is your point again?
We might be trying it in different way but both Nazi Germany and the United States have or had a vision of a new world order. Only difference we play the good guy and politics and secrecy to implement ours and the Nazis tried to used brute military force.
This, for some reason, irritated people ;)
I would even go further. I would ban all USA developed software binaries for good. The new EU directive on Software/Hardware ----------------------------------------- All non-EU software sold in the EU MUST be sold only under source code. It's illegal to sell and distribute non-EU binaries. All non-EU hardware sold in the EU must bring it's circuit design details along. eheheh!!!
Credit agencies perform a valuable function in the economy, in that, they serve as a clearing house of information. Before you are extended credit, the creditor must have some idea as to how LIKELY you are to pay. How would you propose they do this, magic? They do it based on the 5 C's of credit: Conditions, Capacity, Collateral, Capital, Character. Your credit HISTORY goes along way towards illuminating many of these. Would you rather be judged on your ACTIONS, or on some artificial criterion (e.g., how you act, talk, dress, etc)? I don't know about you, but i'd rather have them judge me on WHAT i've done.
Though I concede that they make some mistakes, many wish are harsh on the individual, it works on the aggregate. The mere fact that you and others have been burnt, does not mean you or creditors would be better off without it. Nor does it even necessarily mean that the system could be further optimized.
One thing you must remember, is that creditors are in the business of making money. This means that they want to lend as much money as they can, and get paid back at the highest rates possible. They worry about the aggregate. If there are enough individuals such as yourself, with only few minor "cosmetic" blemishes (if you are to be believed), the odds are high that someone will look past it, as you represent potential profits. Though I readily concede that the system occasionally hurts the individual, it works on the aggregate. Lacking mindreading devices, you should know that banning of credit reporting in its entirity would cause immeasurable damage on the aggregate.
Yes, but look how well the clipper phone sold; it was a commercial disaster. Companies take note of such things.
Secondly, I don't think AT&T was special in any way; the government had been planning and developing the Clipper chip long before AT&T tried to get export approval for their phone (which was originally going to use DES). The government probably pursuaded AT&T that they would be able to export the phone with the Clipper chip, and that was how they pursuaded some overly naive AT&T executives. Intel doesn't have the same motivation to gimmick their P3 RNG.
Ok, many people are attacking the EU with strawman arguments. Read the original document first. I have included the most important section.
I snipped this from:
http://cryptome.org/stoa-r3-5.htm
********************
8. Recommendations
It is our view that the recommendations (Section 4.5, p. 21-22) contained in the previous report [35] are still valid. Here, however, we seek to provide the European Parliament with some alternative solutions.
A. - Experts should be commissioned to provide updates on a regular basis, or as required, to the technical documents published by Community bodies. For example, it would be advisable to examine whether and to what extent the comments made in 5.4 (which are by no means exhaustive) have been taken into consideration; it would also be advisable to monitor the conferences on AES, IEEE-P1363 and P1363A concerning secret-key and public-key cryptography and the experimental developments with regard to quantum processors.
B. - Bearing in mind the legal risks run by European telephone industries (groups of users could be roused to action by the fact that the level of security provided does not systematically correspond to the level claimed), European bodies should encourage European telephone operators to:
- update their implementation of the COMP128 authentication algorithm;
- clearly specify the actual level of security of their implementation of the encryption algorithm A5.
C - In view of the fact that the NSA has managed to bring about a considerable reduction in the degree of security offered to non-US users of solutions developed by Microsoft, Netscape and Lotus for encrypting electronic messages, with the express intention of being systematically able to read the messages exchanged by these users (and probably being the only agency in the world able to do so), the European Parliament should actively promote the use, amongst European organisations, firms and citizens, of e-mail encrypting solutions that actually provide the confidentiality promised. At the same time, Proposal 5 of the `Policy issues for the European Parliament' contained in the STOA IC 2000 report by Duncan Campbell should be taken into consideration.
D. - In view of:
- the launch of the worldwide advertising campaign for the PSN*-equipped Pentium III by the market leader (80%+) for PC chips,
- the risks of the PSN being used for electronic surveillance purposes,
- the concern shown by the highest US authorities with regard to this precise subject (see the declaration [15] made on 25 January 1999 by Mr Al Gore, Vice-President of the United States),
- the risk that PSNs may be cloned and be unsuitable for e-commerce, hence the risk that this new industry may be held back, particularly in Europe, the relevant committees of the European Parliament should:
- call on American government agencies, including the NSA and FBI, to provide information on their role in the creation of the PSN developed by Intel,
- at the same time commission a group of independent technical experts to conduct a precise assessment of the risks connected to this product: electronic surveillance, PSN falsification, etc.
The group should issue its report as soon as possible.
Building on the initial results of the above, if appropriate, the relevant committees of the European Parliament, should be asked to consider legal measures to prevent PSN-equipped (or PSN-equivalent) chips from being installed in the computers of European citizens, firms and organisations. We wish to underline most strongly that the above suggestions have no connection whatsoever with any particular firm, but are motivated purely by the characteristics of a product which, unless rapid action is taken at Community level, may become a de facto industrial standard in Europe within the next few months.
E. - As regards Category 5, Part 2 of the Wassenaar Arrangement, dealt with in Section 7 of this report, the following should be noted:
- Since high-security secret-key and public-key algorithms are freely accessible, for example via the Internet, and in view of Note 7.4 and the implications of such accessibility (see 7.5), it appears that export restrictions in no way constitute a serious impediment for criminal and terrorist organisations. Nevertheless, by following the example of the United States the police can take effective action, even when top-quality cryptographic products are freely used.
- However, in the light of 7.6, such export restrictions pose a serious obstacle to European data security firms and hinder the development of the international e-commerce industry.
- On 19 January 1999, following the inter-ministerial committee meeting on the information society ([5]), the French Government, in agreement with President Chirac, pledged to liberalise the use of cryptography by raising from 40 bits to 128 bits the security threshold which may be freely used. This latest development is apparently only the first step towards a total deregulation of the use of cryptography on French territory. Until then, French rules on cryptography had been among the most stringent in the world.
- The Echelon network is most probably able to intercept, decode and process the information transmitted with products on the market that fulfil the criteria mentioned in 7.2.
In order to strengthen Community cohesion, the European Parliament should strive initially to persuade EU countries to adopt a common position at the meetings organised under the Wassenaar Arrangement. Subsequently, in view of the aforementioned points, and in order to boost electronic commerce on a worldwide scale, it should suggest that the Community simply with from Category 5, Part 2 of the list of products subject to controls under the Wassenaar Arrangement.
F. - The committee should commission a more detailed report on the implications of the risks in terms of electronic surveillance that the Wassenaar Arrangement brings with it. For example, under Item 5.B.1.b.1 (Part 1, on Telecommunications) certain equipment using ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) digital techniques is subject to controls. This data transfer technology is far more difficult (but not impossible, see [32], part 2, and the aforementioned STOA report by Duncan Campbell) to monitor electronically than conventional TCP/IP systems. It would also be very useful to ascertain whether products that are authorised for export provide effective responses to TEMPEST (see 2.7 and introduction to point 3), since the usefulness of cryptosystems is somewhat limited if the data can be read in plaintext before encryption or after decryption, with the aid of electromagnetic radiation.
I hope they do embargo the PIII, that will mess up the supply/demand curve enough to make them cheaper so I can buy them :)
When are governments going to learn that embargoing other countries only hurts their own consumers. Additionally, the EU is nowhere near powerful enough to embargo a major US company like Intel. Just tell the Germans we will embargo their BMW's and they will wet their pants trying to lift the intel embargo fast enough...
OK, some thought streams I had while reading through the comments...nevermind, I am down to one thought since after moderating all morning I can't seem to put the others in words well:
It is very impressive to me how we always see people shouting and screaming that Intel has just as much of a monopoly over CPUs as Macrohard has over the OS market. I think this discussion pretty much dispells that idea. I haven't seen a single person crying about the EU suddenly being locked out of consumer computers until Intel changes its ways or the EU gives up this suggested embargo. Why not? Because AMD is there and with Dresden coming on line, should be able to supply them with chips (at one heck of a premium I would bet as supply and demand reign supreme). However, if we look at what would happen if they did ban Macrohard OSes, then you would have many people locked out of buying many other products (Winmodems come to mind immediately) that are tied to strickly Macrohard coded OSes. While many will say that people have the alternative of Linux, and that any company that ties themselves to Macrohard deserves to suffer, I can not agree with that. Linux is still a very difficult OS to operate effectively despite the fantastic progress that is being made (heck, my machine at home is still causing me some audio grief).
To me this shows that yes, AMD processors are substitutional products for Intel chips whereas Linux is not a substitutional product (in the economic sense) for Winblows products (which I think is a very good thing). I could go on with this for quite some time but will spare everyone the far reaching affects of AMD's capacity focusing on the EU and leaving us in the States high and dry....
*It does need to be noted, I have worked for both Intel and AMD, and I do tend to be biased on that front, but trying hard to not let that enter too heavily. However, I have no problems indicating my bias against Uncle Billy's company since I have not been directly affiliated with them*
So, the Germans want the whole EU to boycott the Pentium III. There is one company which would benefit from this, and that is AMD. And what company just built a huge new fab and design center in, of all places, Germany? So for each and every Athlon which is sold in place of the Pentium III, which country benefits? Germany! It smells quite suspicious to me.
Did you know that in the PGP 6.0 US version "pgpsdkNL.dll" (network library) are functions, among which are these two: the other is called PGPUploadToKeyServer (probably to upload keys to the key server, doh) and PGPUploadPrivateKeysToKeyServer (dunno!). Ever since I disassembled that for fun with W32Dasm I've been wondering about it. Maybe it has a logical explanation...
Every Pentium-III compatible board I have seen has an option in the BIOS to disable the PSN, and Intel even has a utility on their web site (Sorry, don't remember the link off the top of my head) to disable it. Besides, it's pretty pointless anyway. Unless you're an EXTREME security/privacy freak, (use an anonymizer, disable cookies, etc.) you're being tracked by ten different companies every time you're online anyway. -- You are paranoid, and YES, they are out to get you.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Actually, the P3 has some sort of built-in random generator... It measures the amount of some sort of radiation of something.. dunno what, should be lots of info about it, search the intel site...
I agree with your subject (mostly) but you got some of your facts wrong. The ID imbeded into Word docs. is in fact based on your MAC address. Likewise, any serial # that is available to software could be used just as easily. The problem is that when this Intel serial # issue first came out, they were promoting it for two distinct purposes:
1. To the public & press it was about securing e-commerce.
2. To developers it was a way to prevent copyright infringement.
#1 of course implies that the serial # would be sent out to anyone you have a business relationship with (and anyone else your sw vendor thinks should have it). Think of it as a sort of "Super Cookie".
#2 gives way too much power to software vendors to decide when/if you can use their software. These folks (at least in the Windows world) already take too many liberties with the systems that their software is installed on and I'm not about to give them more power. One of my clients had no less than three different processes running on one of his machines all just waiting for 30 days to expire so they could remind him to register his software. One came with a piece of commercial software that he had purchased and the other two were software that came with the hardware he had purchased. None were shareware or anything of that nature. Can you imagine what a PITA it would be if you had to call every softare vendor for a new serial # every time you re-installed a Windows box?
The thought that when I purchase an Intel chip a company somewhere should be able to track my movements and activities across the net bothers me - I don't buy snooping devices, I buy PC equipment for my own use, and I don't want hidden "loss of privacy" costs.
Returning to the original article, it says, "...an inquiry of the possible roles of the NSA and the FBI in the creation of ..." That Intel should think itself in a position to impose this "remote tagging" on it's customers is worse than RealNetworks scanning our taste in music, because they can then track everything we do on the Internet. I didn't agree with the Realnetworks approach, and I agree with this even less. But lets not lose sight of the fact that this investigation is into the government agencies involvement in the fabrication of the system, and the thought that the US government should think it appropriate or permissible to start tracking my movements on the Internet in any way should concern us all.
Only a fool thinks that they have absolute privacy on the internet. Your e-mail can be read by a resourceful cracker/hacker/or system administrator. You surfing can be tracked by the same resourceful group, and because of the way that the internet works there isn't much than can be done about it.
That doesn't make it right - by your definition, a very large proportion of the Internet-aware population of the planet are fools, suffering from this loss of privacy whilst entrusting personal and business documents to the internet for safe, uncompromised delivery. Lets not think that makes it Ok for Intel, with or without their government's say-so, to embed technology into their chips that represents a further weakening of what little privacy is left.
At this point I'm finding it very hard to avoid falling back on tired "Big Brother" cliches, which means it's probably a good place to stop.
Salocin.com
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Not a very original statement, is it? Just a special case of Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crap."
--JT
I've never been a believer in conspiracy theories and I don't put too much stock in the one I'm about to mention, but it does make one think. AMD has a big new chip plant in Germany that the German government has been a strong supporter of, if I remember right. If Germany is the one leading the charge on this PIII ban, it does make you wonder if there is some sort of connection.
> If the EU has the guts to tell Intel and US global surveillance industry to fuck off for
> whatever reason then they are to be applauded.
On this point, we agree.
I actually believe, now, that the best friends the citizens of the U.S. have are foreign governments that won't put up with our government's bullshit anymore.
Germany subverting the Wasenaar agreement is a prime case. This possible action by the EU is another.
Where privacy is concerned, our government is becoming as bad as the Soviet Union or China; the policies of this government, from a bird's-eye view, see this country falling more and more toward a socialist society. This is troubling to me, and to most people I know.
But, onward...
> If you want to really live out your Libertarian dreams I suggest you move to Russia NOW and leave
> Western Civilization to those of us who value it.
Pardon me, but are you out of your mind? Do you know what Libertarianism is, or are you simply speaking from your small end?
What is happening in Russia (I originally misconstrued your intent to mean "go and live in a backwards Communist place", but I finally caught a clue) is FAR from Libertarianism.
The criminals are running the show, rather than duly elected representatives. The people have no say in matters, and must pay extortion to the criminals in charge. In such a system, there is no freedom. Nobody in Russia can simply tell the crime syndicate to "fuck off". If they did, they would simply cease to exist. In that way, it is much like the old socialist government of the Soviet Union.
Western Civilization, or, at least, American Civilization (of old) is based more around Libertarian principles than you seem to believe. The idea that someone can conduct their life with a minimum of interference by some governing body, be it a criminal syndicate, a monarchy, or a government like the one we have today (I really don't see a difference, to tell you the honest-to-God truth!), is a Western idea, and the central idea of Libertarianism.
It's all about LIBERTY.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
(BTW, this is an OBVIOUS IDEA. You saw it here. It should not be patentable).
The secret snippet in turn could generate a random XOR mask in memory, which could be used (in new execution mode) to access encrypted code and data that would not fit in cache. (Hm. In case this is getting patentable, I hereby put this and derivatives in the public domain).
This would make possible a whole range of reliably secure software, including of course easy copy protection of streams like music and video etc.
Hopefully the chip maker would make the relevant initiating instruction(s) privileged (unlike the access to PIII PSN), so that user mode viruses, browsers/activex, etc. could not make use of this feature without going through the OS. (The PIII disable-PSN-access-until-general-reset is not as good as privileged instruction protection IMHO).
My crystal ball says this kind of hardware support will enable secure Object-to-Object and Agent-to-Agent communication in the future, and that signed Open Source will be the only way to make sure the Objects and Agents in your PC and elsewhere are working for you.
I think the technology will be necessary for secure interconnectedness. An interesting question is whether chip designs will have to become open source or certified in some way to allow them to be trusted by businesses and individuals globally.
The *real* answer... just leave your machine off all the time and never use it an nobody will ever be able to trace your CPU!!
>
So, Micro$oft - in conjunction with the CIA and NSA - writes the code into their software to put the CPU serial# into a word document, and its Intel's fault???
Anybody out there ever used a Sun workstation? Each machine has a CPU ID (yes, it *is* changeable if you really want to) and any software which is licensed to that machine via "flexlm" for instance, needs that ID#. I've never heard of anyone worrying about the NSA spying on their Sun workstation...
> A bit one the poisonous side, just like getting run over repeatedly by a large truck can give
> minor health problems.
Come on. The effects of exposure to lead are cumulative. I used to eat peeling lead paint from my grandma's house when I was a kid (it's sweet!). While not a wise thing to do (besides the fact that I was unaware of the lead content of the paint at the time, and wouldn't have understood what that meant anyway, and the fact that the rest of society was ignorant to the effects of lead on the body), it hasn't affected me in any way that I can see. My grandma used to do the same thing when she was a kid, and she's 82 years old now, sharp as a pin, and still kicking strong!
The effects of being run over repeatedly by a truck are immensely more immediate and catastrophic.
Stop spreading FUD, because you don't understand that about which you speak.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
Yes, apple pie was definately invented in America. Apples are indigenous to the lowlands of afghanistan and pakistan. They were something of a curiousity fruit until bio-terrorist Johnny Appleseed spread this non-native species throughout the North American continent. This happened to coincide with the switch from top crust fruit desserts, dandies, to bottom crust fruit desserts, pies. Food has changed immensely in the last 300 years with many populations' staple diet depending on species that were recently confined to their native areas. A tremendous worldwide change in diet resulted from the European age of discovery and resultant discovery and transfer of foods from the Americas. (Potatoes, peanuts and corn are probably the most widespread of those.)
I know Gore has a rep for being boring, but Babelfish takes this a little far, no? :-)
Echelon, GM foods, Hollywood, PIII serial number
What do these have in common? Politicians in the EU using these issues to stoke the fire of Nationalism or Continentialism.
It's the big bad USA doing evil things, sapping vital bodily fluids with their listening outposts, CPU IDs, mind numbing cultural exports (Hollywood), and "dangerous" GM foods.
Is it any wonder that most of the whining comes from France, a country so uptight about losing their colonial power that they spend enormous efforts trying to protect their language from adopting loanwords, or their culture seeing too many foreign films, or african countries becoming independent of "assistance"
Echelon is no more real than UFOs. It's a phony government conspiracy that idiots will never disbelieve because any lack of evidence against its existence merely proves how secretive and wellkept it is.
The NSA, GCHQ, and other intelligence agencies around the world use listening outposts to listen in on EM transmissions, and they wiretap embassies, telegrams, and most transatlantic cables. This is *KNOWN* and has been known for 40 years. The australian admissions are not evidence for Echelon, they are evidence that Austrailian scans EM frequencies. BFD. Do yourself a favor and go read CodeBreakers.
Do they have the capability to intercept every phone call, every IP packet, every email message, and every radio signal in the whole entire world transmitted each second? Do they have such omnipotence? No. It's a fantasy that they can get EVERY PHONE CALL, EMAIL, etc. Echelon is a fantasy as proposed by EU saber rattlers.
The PIII CPU ID is yet another bogus issue brought up to encourage nationalistic feelings against the US. Oh no, poor Europe, that doesn't have its own microcomputer industry, is going to be monopolized and have its freedoms taken away by Intel because their computer has a unique ID in the CPU. Oh no! We better stop these yankees now!
The more AMD Athlons are sold, the better for AMD; the more money AMD has, the more money they can invest in R&D and the less the chance AMD will be squashed by Intel; if Intel can't squash AMD, AMD will keep competing; if Intel has a competitor, you will pay only about 750 $ for a P III/700 (or an Athlon 700) instead of 1200 or 1400 or who knows how much...
/. because the moderators have sold their souls to RatHat, which in turn has sold it's soul to Intel, but this, dear gentlemen, is the truth: the better AMD does, the better for all.
I know bashing Intel is NOT popular on
Your point is completely invalidated for no other reason that the credit system DOES WORK IN EUROPE (which includes Belgium). People are granted credit, and creditors (including Citibank for instance) make lots of $$$.
Unless you can deny this simple facts your theory just does not hold.
Best wishes !
Of course, Germany has a stake in AMD's Fab 30, so they are looking for ways to assist them, but there are other reasons other than this "privacy" bullsh^H^H^H^H^Husiness.
Let's start with false advertising. The claim of "making the Internet more fun" is highly subjective, and I haven't been able to have any more fun with a PIII than any other Intel chip I've had in the past two years. In fact, my Athlon 500 (are there any distros that *do* work with Athlon/FIC SD-11 mobo?) is indirectly making the Internet much more fun -- I can apply the cost savings over a P3-550 towards DSL!
Anticompetitiveness. We've been hearing about Gateway using Athlons (after backing out just before the release) for about a week, and this article at The Register is the most telling so far. Sounds like the kids from Santa Clara are going yet another step farther than the gang in Redmond.
People complain about Microsoft's "monopoly power", but Intel doesn't have a foot to stand on compared to them...
--
E2 IN2 IE?
The German government has spent hundreds of $millions to subsidize AMDs new, huge Dresden fab. They would of course like to maximize their return on investment (tax revenues). Intel-bashing is a pretty effective way to do this. This is waaaay too big a conflict of interest to be mere coincidence.
Of course, if German taxes weren't so rapaciously high companies wouldn't need subsidies to set up shop there, and we'd avoid such conflicts of interest. But then what would the political fixer class do with themselves?
If you are going to throw down the cash for a computer and don't do some investigating first, is it really the government's job to stop you from doing something stupid?
Yes. Yes it is. Are you suggesting that average citizens, without any help from a well-funded and influential non-commercial group could manage to protect themselves from a feature of a microprocessor?
Have you ever eaten DDT lately? Have you breathed fallout from nuclear accidents? Have you impaled yourself on a solid steering column? The reason people MAKE governments is to protect them and to make expert decisions in their interests.
Maybe all governments don't do the greatest job all the time, but human society doesn't want to go back to living in Wild Kingdom. I applaud people who watch out for government missteps, but "The Market" is not the most useful force for driving our society. A balance between totalitarianism and anarchy is the best we can hope for.
Just like with DVDs we'll see region coded Pentium III CPUs. They will only work in motherboards with the matching region coding scheme. Software will be able to disable itself from running in certain regions. Executable code itself will soon be encrypted. Bye bye debuggers and disassemblers. We'll have CSS2 encrypted code streams, decrypted in real time inside the CPU at the last moment for execution. Copying code across regions won't work anymore. And breaking the code or hacking the region checks will be illegal under the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act that takes effect in 2000 (thank you Slick Willie). So even if you import a Euro CPU and motherboard, you won't be able to run your domestic software on it. Of course some guys in Norway will eventually crack CSS2 and post a small program that reads encrypted code streams from disk and writes them out unencrypted. The program will be spread widely and then the FBI/NSA/Intel/etc. will pressure sites to remove it. Code will then still be forever runable anywhere thanks to the crack (like with DVDs), but only within an underground world of users running region cracked CPUs, who will always live with the threat of someday being caught and prosecuted. Now maybe all this won't happen with PIIIs this year, but within 10 years or so...??? PH33R the future. I sure do.
P-III chips have a true random number generator
that uses thermal noise to generate the number.
Unless you believe the paranoia and think the NSA conviced Intel to subvert their design (making it more expensive to manufacture!), thermal noise
is about the best way to get random numbers for cryptography.
Considering Intel's huge market share and technology lead, I don't EC would get in an embargo that would hurt European consumers. If EC takes any action against Intel and its P-III unique ID, it's much more likely to be an injunction to Intel to create a P-III wihtout a unique ID and to make it available in the European market, or even to completly remove this unique ID feature in any PIII or other product anywhere in the world.
:-)
Of course EU has juridiction only in Europe, but Intel has huge interests and assets in Europe, and wouldn't like to piss off the Comission. Furthermore, the EU can create some strong incentive for Intel to comply, such as an anti-trust review and tutelage or controlled pricing and availability obligation.
Potential bad weather for Intel ahead
"Why not? I mean, who would buy it in the first place? Can you see the advertising campaign? Try our new foo paint, now with extra lead! Guaranteed to cause cancer or double your money back! "
Lots of people would buy it. Including you. It wouldn't be labeled "LEAD PAINT!" It'd be labeled "PAINT". And it'd be cheaper then the other stuff. You wouldn't know. They'd give it some fancy brand name and we'd all think it was something new.
I agree do that I still don't understand why people get upset about irradiated foods though.
The North American public seems to be more relaxed about the invasion of privacy issues. Accidentally (?) this is the continent, where the public does not seem to be bothered that the general grocery stores carry about 60% of goods which are genetically modified, and not even labelled. Some scientists call this the experiment on the largest scale in human history - with unforseenable threats to a huge segment of population. Companies, like Monsanto even seem to manage to reverse a fundamental principle: previously producers of new products had to prove that it will not cause harm for customers.
These days these 'new economy' companies want to put the burden of proof to govertment regulation agencies. They think that the product should be able to be marketed - untill someone proves that it's harmful.
In Europe there was a real riot about GMO-s (genetically modified organism), led by customers, who refused to buy these products, forcing new labelling, etc. As a result, European countries have higher standards to protect their health and safety than Americans and Canadians.
Mind you, they had the mad cow desease experience, which hit home very closely.
If Europeans gets pissed off about privacy concerns by the P-III, Intel had better watch out. Again, Europe is a place, where these issues can be really heated: there are deeply rooted memories there about all kind of dictatorial political systems there.
Can you imagine if Hitler or the communist dictators could have had the power of collecting, processing information the way it is possible today?
I have a sneaking suspicion that goes both ways between those 2 firms (if you can call Airbus a firm - more of a state-funded industry). The french in particular are notorious for commiting industrial espionage.
The whole tone of this article was very speculative. There was nothing in it that would indicate that a boycott could actually take place.
The EU moves very slowly anyway, and the P-III is already selling here.
The German governments (as opposed to the Austrians) have always accepted Echelon in the past. While this *could* change, it has not done so yet.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Guys, this is nuts. First of all, no one can really say wether the FBI or NSA has a hidden agenda, and you know what? No one can say wether the EU has a hidden agenda! It really dosen't matter anyway. Personally, if you smell smoke you should investigate. DUH! If the EU is currious, or even scared of these numbers, they have every right to investigate them until they are satisfied! As far as the FBI and NSA, I could well see a way of attacking windows through these numbers. Then what? They have access to your files, everything. This dosen't really matter to me, no, but especially EU govenment officials should have concern. Other than that, as has been pointed out before, the EU isn't stupid. The EU consists of less land area than America but over 20 countries!!! That, unlike our government, is 20+ DIFFERENT OPPINIONS. They all smell smoke. Let them investigate. As far as then Embargo is concerned, do you REALLY think that is going to go through? Well, only time will tell. Viper-X Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinkin' what they're sellin'.
I tried not to respond to this news item, since it's obviously got wrapped up into a privacy debate. And I believe that we're in a relative values game here with no underlying Big Truth. The statement above by Lord Kano really captures the essence of my problem. It's absolutely right and correct to accuse the EU of hypocrisy. This is 1999; everyone is guilty of it in some way. But I feel the honourable poster, along with others, is confusing the difference between the inalienable right to personal privacy, and the need for public protection.
Let me put it this way: When you walk London's streets, or any other British Town's streets for that matter (we have the highest number of CCTV cameras per-capita in the world. Not something to boast about, I know), you're taking action in public. If you weren't being tracked by a camera, there is nothing to stop anyone following, or tagging you for whatever reason (legal, or illegal). Furthermore, no-one is forcing you to walk the streets. Want anonimity? take a taxi, or a bus, or a car. Or don't go there at all (you're a geek. Get what you want from the Net. Including groceries). And I'd come back to your reasons for not being filmed. Those cameras are there for only one reason: crime detection and prevention. They're actually fairly good at it, too, based on the number of high-profile convictions which get shown on UK TV featuring CCTV footage. You're not committing a crime, are you? Why are you worried then?
Now, in the case of a CPUID (Yes, the EU should place similar restrictions on IPv6 (if there is a real risk there of course), MAC addresses and the numerous other non-Intel CPUIDs, but be generous here and consider this a case of setting precedent rather than outright skullduggery), you're "being filmed" without your knowledge, and without your consent, and without a clear purpose. You have no idea what that information is being used for, who is using it, and what rights you yourself have over that information (note to self: Does the UK Data Protection Act apply here I wonder? What impact would THAT have on CPUID tracking if it is applicable?).
Contrast this with CCTV: technology in the hands of a single specified organisation with legal limits to their abilities, and oversight (not perfect, but there), used for a named, restricted purpose.
To me, this is a clear qualitative difference between the two cases. One is controlled, consensual and regulated. The other isn't any of those.
Would I be in favour of CPUID if a clear benefit could be shown from it (fraud prevention is the putative reason), that use would be regulated and legally restricted? Yes. As it is, no no NO.
henley
--
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
INTEL founder, Andrew S. Grove, the Author of Only the Paranoid Survive should know it better. He escaped from Europe, after first hand experience...
That's not the point! America is a good neighbour to most countries, but i still don't want to buy a phone or a TV set with built-in capability for my neighbour to watch my steps, even if I do trust him.
And if the most popular brand of phone or TV comes equipped with such a device, as a government I should be concerned.
If this whole thing is about PIII-s having unique serial numbers, I agree with you: IPv6 and several other technical facilities have those, and they allow anyone, not just the CIA, to acquire a pretty good idea of what you're doing. This is no good reason to act against the PIII. But if a special agreement is involved, e.g. Intel keeping information about the whereabouts of their processors and sharing it with American intelligence agencies, or special firmware designed to help them in some way, then I think there's a good reason to have an import ban on these things.
it would also be advisable to monitor the conferences on AES, IEEE-P1363 and P1363A concerning secret-key and public-key cryptography and the experimental developments with regard to quantum processors.
Cool.
In view of the fact that the NSA has managed to bring about a considerable reduction in the degree of security offered to non-US users of solutions developed by Microsoft, Netscape and Lotus for encrypting electronic messages, with the express intention of being systematically able to read the messages exchanged by these users (and probably being the only agency in the world able to do so), the European Parliament should actively promote the use, amongst European organisations, firms and citizens, of e-mail encrypting solutions that actually provide the confidentiality promised.
Great! As a Swedish citizen of the EU, this has REALLY ticket me off.
- call on American government agencies, including the NSA and FBI, to provide information on their role in the creation of the PSN developed by Intel,
Not that I expect them to do anything but lie lie and lie some more, but still....
- Since high-security secret-key and public-key algorithms are freely accessible, for example via the Internet, and in view of Note 7.4 and the implications of such accessibility, it appears that export restrictions in no way constitute a serious impediment for criminal and terrorist organisations. Nevertheless, by following the example of the United States the police can take effective action, even when top-quality cryptographic products are freely used.
Yep. The EU understands that the encryption export ban only affects the innocent. Still, the longer the export ban is in place, the more unfair advantage the EU crypto developers get. I think we deserve it, considering the NSA industrial espionage.
On 19 January 1999, following the inter-ministerial committee meeting on the information society ([5]), the French Government, in agreement with President Chirac, pledged to liberalise the use of cryptography by raising from 40 bits to 128 bits the security threshold which may be freely used. This latest development is apparently only the first step towards a total deregulation of the use of cryptography on French territory. Until then, French rules on cryptography had been among the most stringent in the world.
Go France!
I let babelfish translate it back :-))
Der vehementesupport der US-Regierung für die Pläne Intels aufregte spezielles Misstrauen es.
Vizepräsident Aluminiumzwickel gepriesen das seriennummer im Jaenner als zutreffende Wunderdroge für die Einstellung in der Bewegung des e-Commerce in der Bewegung.
Vor grosses Brot Innere
Of course, there are differences between EU members too. Finland is somewhat more relaxed about databases -- not much, mind you -- OTOH, spamming (only from Finland, unfortunately) is illegal. Finnish readers might want to check out this (re: spam) and this (re: MMFs); others will have to wait until babelfish starts eating finnish, too. (The first one forbids using automatic methods (as in email, faxes; NOT as in "I'm mailing this individually to everyone, so it can't be spam!" (yes, that happens...)), the second one forbids MMF's, chain letters etc., like just about any other country's laws do.) (I'm starting to think Netscape needs to borrow emacs' brace-highlighting..)
Still, everything you give your address that will get you snailmail-spam (SnailSPAM(TM)? yeourgh:) has to explicitly mention the fact; IANAL, but email is treated similarly.
It would be interesting to hear what the American privacy organizations said of European laws on the matter, though.
-- Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact will be regarded as line noise.
Personally, I think the benefits outweigh the problems; it's really, really infuriating to have to look up codes to re-enable software after, say, upgrading one's operating system or getting a new hard drive or whatever.
It is even more irritating to swap out a bad CPU (or upgrade to a faster one, or add a second one on an MP board), and have all of your licenses suddenly become invalid. When you lose a hard drive there is no way (short of RAID) to avoid reinstalling some software, but when all you want to do is swap out a CPU it really shouldn't become necessary to do so simply for licensing purposes. Reinstalling a serialized program over an existing, original installation may or may not work anyway, depending on what has been left lying around in various subdirectories, the registry, etc. It is far, far easier to look up and type in a serial number (usually printed on the CD case or documentation title-page) than to try and retroactively undo and redo whatever licensing shinnanigans the software has done behind your back.
If looking up serial numbers is too much work, use StarOffice or Excel and make a spreadsheet, print the think out, and tape it up next to your monitor. My God man, you have a computer to help make these kinds of tasks easier. Use it. Don't give up what little remaining privacy and anonymouty you have just for a little convinience.
It was once said (I don't recall the attribution) that those who give up their freedoms in exchange for security wind up being neither free nor secure. Even at their most cynical our forfathers never dreamed we'd be giving up the liberties they worked so hard to achieve, all for just for a little convinience.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You are attacking a strawman. If you read the report posted above you will see that it isn't the Germans who are behind the suggestion (it was just reported at a German site). They point out that they do not attack a specific company, but a certain technology which happens to be in a processor that could be in most European computers in a year. But no, as usual the US can do nothing wrong. Of course we should allow it to invade our privacy, it was silly of me to think otherwise. Please forgive me.
Echelon, GM foods, Hollywood, PIII serial number
What do these have in common? Politicians in the EU using these issues to stoke the fire of Nationalism or Continentialism.t's the big bad USA doing evil things, sapping vital bodily fluids with their listening outposts, CPU IDs, mind numbing cultural exports (Hollywood), and "dangerous" GM foods.
Sorry that we are concerned about how the world is and try to make it a better place. We can't help that lots of scary things come from the US.
The NSA, GCHQ, and other intelligence agencies around the world use listening outposts to listen in on EM transmissions, and they wiretap embassies, telegrams, and most transatlantic cables. This is *KNOWN* and has been known for 40 years. The australian admissions are not evidence for Echelon, they are evidence that Austrailian scans EM frequencies. BFD.
Yes, I think it is a big fucking deal when my privacy is being violated. Not only mine, it is being used for industrial espionage, which costs people real jobs and real money.
mind numbing cultural exports (Hollywood),
It is mindnumbing. I would choose you as exhibit number one of that.
dangerous" GM foods.
This is a strawman that I see repeated in ALL American media. The majority of people I have spoken too don't think that GM food will poison us. We worry about the attitude that instead of limiting human population which is too much as it is, we are going to manipulate nature to create crops that are unable to survive without human intervention, and whose sole purpose of existance is to help us continue to breed like roaches and continue to fill the earths surface and deplete its resources.
It's a fantasy that they can get EVERY PHONE CALL, EMAIL, etc. Echelon is a fantasy as proposed by EU saber rattlers.
Strawman alert. Just because we worry about our privacy right doesn't mean we believe every Eschelon myth that is printed in the media.
> I still don't understand why people get upset about irradiated foods though.
(I'm not an expert)
I understand why people might get upset about irradiated foods.
First of all, there's the irrational fear that irradiated foods will be radioactive, and therefore bad for you. This is just silly, but understandable given the magical nature of radiation to the non-educated.
Secondly, the more realistic complaint that people want their food to be living. The purpose of iradiating food is to kill certain things in it. Of course, our bodies also depend on micro-organisms that we probably get from things we eat. (We can also get very harmful micro-organsisms from things we eat). So, the same people who eat real yogurt, drink raw milk, and take acidophilus probably don't want their food irradiated either.
Also, you can only trace the processor if you know who it is sold to. All guns sold in the US have serial numbers (well, most of them at least). Can the police trace every single one of them to the person who owns it? No. So just don't send in your registration card and it's going to be pretty hard to trace the number back to you.
Besides, you should be yelling at Microsoft, not Intel - they are the ones who are using the number in a manner that is silly. If you are running on the machine instead of WIndows and generating documents in Emacs or vi, no serial numbers are getting attached. Hence, it is a software issue - blame the software people.
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
I've never heard of anyone worrying about the NSA spying on their Sun workstation.
In light of recent comments by Sun's CEO ("you don't have any privacy, get over it.") yes, one should worry about it. The fact that no one does is an entirely different issue than whether or not one should. FWIW I think Sun probably bears even closer watching than the NSA, but I wouldn't consider either one to be particularly strong advocates of individual rights, particularly when it comes to privacy.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Put me down for $50 for an mood swing on the up.
So, NT has not been banned from the US army, hence USS Yorktown had to pause for a few days in the middle of the ocean. USS Yorktown is considered one of the most advanced warships in the world. The army CIOs decided to replace the trusty Unix network installation with NT, and the consequence ... :o)))))))
I hope the Chinese army will deploy NT servers on a large scale, or else, in case of war, the US army has no chance!
Sorry this is offtopic, but is on-topic with the thread. Anyone has a link to an article about the USS Dorktown debacle?
Sigged!
[subtitle]How to be paranoid, for the curious[/subtitle]
... until they pretend to stop. All we can do is our best.
In principle I agree with your statement: if you are running untrusted malicious binaries on your system then you have bigger problems. However, the only way to be sure that a binary can be trusted is to inspect the source it was compiled from, or have someone you trust do that for you. Here are two small requirements to meet in order to avoid those "bigger problems" you refer to.
1. You must be able to read and understand all the source languages of all your binaries, and you must know all the possible security/privacy/etc. threats that could be implemented in those languages. In other words, you are a programming and security expert for all those languages. Or you know and trust someone who is.
2. You must have access to the source code that all your binaries were built from. In other words, you run only open source software.
While you may meet those requirements just fine, the majority of computer users who might choose to use or be forced to use (by their employer) a computer do not meet those requirements. Not even close. I'm certain that I don't. [For reference, use of most commercial software products is automatic disqualification.]
Do you have the time to scrutinize the source for everything you run? Do you have the source to everything you run? For your sake, I hope so.
For the rest of us, two solutions present themselves. Either we can try to prevent private information from leaking out of our computers (difficult-to-impossible), or we can try to prevent outside organizations from recording and using this information (also difficult) and give them plenty of negative press, boycotts, rants,
p.s. I happen to consider Microsoft products to be untrusted malicious binaries. Do you have reason to suggest otherwise? For those of us trapped in the Windows world, do you have a solution -- that runs on Windows?
Just because I'm not paranoid doesn't mean that no one is spying on me.
The Autonomous Cow. Moo.
Credit cards are not the only form of credit; in fact, many "credit cards" are not credit. These agencies don't check on you because they like to, they check on it because they're extending you credit. Utility companies have, in fact, extended you credit, if they're sending you a bill. You'll be hard pressed to find people who won't accept cash upfront. If you pay in cash, that is not credit, thus it does not go on your credit report. There are in fact ways to completely avoid showing up in a credit report, it's just a pain in the butt (people take credit for granted). If you are still worried about your "credit report", the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Federal law) allows you, the consumer, to both view and refute your credit report.
It is possible to not have your spending habits show up in a credit report; don't use credit. Credit cards are not the only form of credit, if you're recieving services before you've paid for it, that is in fact credit (e.g., most utility bills). The fact of the matter is that people take credit for granted, they don't realize that they are being extended credit.
Europe is not doing "just fine". Those countries which enforce such stringent credit reporting laws, are, invariably, much harder to obtain credit in (relative to the US). The truely prosperous EU countries do not have such laws.
Actually, it looks more like a boob to me.
But maybe I've just been at work too long.
Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto, for creating this online world we live in.
There is nothing to explain. The countries which hold to such stringent credit laws, are plagued with problems. It is significantly harder to get credit any where in Europe, more so in countries which are 'stricter'. Furthermore, these banks make most of their money from businesses, and relatively safe bets at that.
Think about it this way, who would you lend credit to:
a) Joe Schmoe who earns 20 dollars an hour, but has never held a job longer than 6months. Period.
b) Joe Schmoe who holds the same job, with a long history of prompt credit repayments.
Obviously, you would choose B, information is key. Those who are superficially (e.g., job, education, looks, dress, etc) closer to the fringes are FAR more likely to be turned down in such a system, or charged far higher interest rates. Bankers are risk averse, particularly given much of EU's relatively weak economy. This have been demonstrated and charted numerous times.
Citibank makes a significant amount of money in Europe (mostly in the truely prosperous countries, not Belgium (et. al)), but nothing compared to the credit generated profits from Americans, proportionately speaking. My "theory " holds plenty of water, and is a well known fact amongst anyone who really knows banking. Yes, the American credit bureaus could be improved in regards to its approach to the individual; some without significant cost; many, though, are not without substancial economic costs.
There is nothing to explain. The countries which hold to such stringent credit laws are plagued with problems. It is significantly harder to get credit anywhere in Europe, more so in countries which are 'stricter'. Furthermore, these banks make most of their money from businesses, and relatively safe bets at that.
Think about it this way, who would you extend credit to:
a) Joe Schmoe who earns 20 dollars an hour, but has never held a job longer than 6months. Period.
b) Joe Schmoe who holds the same job, with a long history of prompt credit repayments...
Obviously, you would choose B, information is key. Those who are superficially (e.g., job, education, looks, dress, etc) closer to the fringes are FAR more likely to be turned down in such a system, or charged far higher interest rates. Bankers are risk averse, particularly given much of EU's relatively weak economy. This have been demonstrated and charted numerous times.
Citibank makes a significant amount of money in Europe (mostly in the truely prosperous countries, not Belgium (et. al)), but nothing compared to the credit generated profits from Americans, proportionately speaking. My "theory " holds plenty of water, and is a well known fact amongst anyone who really knows banking. Yes, the American credit bureaus could be improved in regards to its approach to the individual; some without significant cost; many, though, are not without substancial economic costs.
I've already posted to this thread numerous times, and it's getting tiresome. Short and sweet, most all of these things you mention ARE in fact credit. Thus they belong on a credit report. It is as simple as that.
You are taking credit for granted. Credit bureaus perform a valid and important function (as I've explained elsewhere in this thread).
Not I'm not talking about Intel chips, I'm talking about HORMON ENHANCED BEEF. It's strictly forbidden to produce such beef in Europe, and the EU has forbidden importing american beef because of it.
Recently, the World Trade Organisation has approved of US commercial repraisal, since, according to it, there is no scientific proof that feeding beef with those hormons is harmful. BUT THERE IS NO PROOF EITHER THAT IT IS HARMLESS! In doubt, most EU citizen are not willing to take the risk -- AIDS and BSE, anyone?
On top of that, and here lies the real injustice, EU is willing to authorize american beef, as long as it is produced without the hormons. Thus competition is preserved since everybody is on the same playing field.
So why not let the market decide? First of all, for the customer to decide, they have to be able to choose! But
Now, you might argue that american are eating that crap^H^H^H^H^food,
Then, to keep this on-topic: we have american libertarian complaining about this EU investigation, and apparently, all the european posters supporting it. See a pattern? Mind your fucking business! Most europeans are happy with this kind of government intervention. You don't want that in the US? You don't have it anyway!
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There is code in arch/i386/setup.c which disables the PSN if detected, so unless someone accidently slips and loads a kernel module designed to re-activate it Linux users have nothing to worry about.
Besides, if you have an Ethernet card with a loaded driver, your machine already has an ID.
Apparently Al Gore has finally rid himself of his wooden image. The Babelfished version of this story lists him as "aluminium Gore".
Sure, just like Intel is advertising its processors as "Buy our PIII processor with its unique serial number, and be tracked to every p0rn site you visit".
-- Abigail
Few of the comments in favor of EU sovereignty, mostly from European posters BTW, even the most insightful ones, got moderate significantly.
What's this bias?
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This is a ridiculous post. First he alluded to getting AIDS from hormone enhanced beef. I won't even bother touching this since it would be simply insane to believe anyone could catch AIDS from eating beef. It's not like we're fucking the cows out here. Same goes with BSE (mad cow right?), it's a disease and wouldn't be a result of hormones. I believe what the EU is worried about is that it might be cancerous, but this hasn't proven or disproven I believe, which is a "guilty until proven innocent" situation that is equally insane. Furthermore, I've yet to hear of the "Cigar Embargo" as that has been proven to cause cancer and is far more dangerous than hormone enhanced beef. Then in the middle I'm not really sure what he was saying. I guess the meat wouldn't need a warning label if it didn't have the hormones and the resturant example would then be a non-issue since the meat never had hormones. Then with the point of American's being fat (which is true) plot a graph of per capita income and weight and you'll see a correlation. More money = less work and more food = fat. Believing that it has something to do with the beef is once again, insane. And finally, I agree with your statement that the EU should be completely free to embargo whatever they choose to do because they have soverignty and they should have the ability to govern themselves without outside interference. However your claim that the US shouldn't care is blinded by nationalism since we live in a global market, and if a demand as large as the EU were to suddenly disappear the American beef industry would be in deep shit. The original poster made the mistake of adocating free trade (which is not always good) instead of advocating for fair trade. The fact that there is no proof connecting beef (as of now) to cancer seems to me a smokescreen to protect European beef. This would amount to unfair trade as we would continue to import but unable to export. On a larger scale our currency would get sucked out of our country, GDP would fall, the economy would collapse and then the EU would collapse bringing about another dark age all because you wouldn't buy our beef! heh.
Seriously, the whole thing seems very protectionist to me and if the EU were to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt tomorrow that hormone enhanced beef caused cancer I'd hop on your boat and I would stop eating beef. But no one has, it's just like the cell-phones causing cancer, but those haven't been outlawed have they? In closing, we have plenty of government intervention in the US, but it mostly amounts to what (some) republicans think is morally right for us. And that reminds me a bit of fascism.
Lousy 33.6 modem -- methinks I need to find a burner at work. I don't care much for Red Hat or GNOME anyway, so the combo of KDE and Debian might work out just on its own merits...
Any other *distros* that work? I'm *not* interested in roll-my-own Slackware type stuff (though I'd fix a few things if I did).
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E2 IN2 IE?
"One problem: most people lack the technical skills to make a well founded technical judgement of what this chip has to offer. Most users are not aware of the differences between a PII, a PII and a K7."
One of these things is not like the others, two of these things are the same. Can you tell me which one doesn't belong?
;-)
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The beef example works the exact same way the P3 thing is turning out. There is no proof that the FBI or NSA is involved, therefore it shouldn't be an issue until it is proved that they are involved.
Seems to me that, to be consistent, they should also embargo word processing software (such as Microsoft Word) that stelthily embeds CPU addresses, software serial numbers, MAC addresses, and other such identification in its output files.
Oh gosh! How will you KNOW if the software does this? I guess you'll just have to READ THE SOURCE, won't you. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So are these the same people that terrorize farmers for using genetically enhanced food, or is this a different group of crazies motivating this? Hrm, maybe we can export the americans that think the serial number is a privacy problem to europe? As long as they don't embargo gullibility... And, while we're at it, anyone care to guess how much damage this would do to the EU economy?
That wasn't the NSA, that was the US military. And the HIDAR balls (aka "Dew line" or "Golf balls") are not located in Europe, they are located in Canada. They are located there to detect incoming Russian missiles (which are going the short way, right over the N pole). The Canadian PM of the time (probably John Diefenbaker or Mackenzie King) let the US build their dew line on our soil because Roosovelt (sp is wrong) promised to protect Canada if it was ever invaded.
/ANOTHER/ invasion [Hitler, Napoleon, WW1, etc]).
As a Canadian, I value the good will of the US military in protecting Canada (after some of the military exposures here) over our own military.. But I don't thnk the dew line was much of a deterent to the Russians (who were just paranoid about
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I don't have any info on K7/Athawhatever. But I thought I'd pass on this info about the K6-2, so the truly paranoid would have an extra datapoint.
(Of course the really truly utterly paranoid won't trust me, or my unnamed source, either. B-) )
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
First he alluded to getting AIDS from hormone enhanced beef. I won't even bother touching this since it would be simply insane to believe anyone could catch AIDS from eating beef.
LOL! I never said that. Since you seem to be neuronly impaired, let me expand: in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, people would downplay the danger, except a few Cassandras. Now ... how many poor soul caught AIDS from transfused blood? People believed the risk was negligible from transfusion. It was'nt proved that AIDS could be transmissible from transfusion, mind you!!! But of course, it wasn't proved that it could'nt either!
So now there is no proven danger with hormoned beef, but there is no proof of the contrary either ... wanna bet? The amount of the bet is ... your life. Still want that steak?
Now, the saddest part in the whole thing is that we don't need those hormons! In the EU alone, there is a mass overproduction of beef. Do we really need to risk the people's life to make EVEN MORE of it?
And you don't want the US beef industry to be in danger. Fine. Why don't you want them to play by the same, sane rules of the european industry? Same rules. Let the more competitive win. But not by dirty trick, especially when it's MY LIFE at stake, I don't wanna look like an overweight merkin couch potatoe.
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its fuck up my screen
Once the serial number is turned off, it can't be turned back on (until you power-cycle the chip). So if you have a trusted binary turn off the number, no program should be able to read it. Of course, this assumes no programs can mess with the boot process and run before the number is disabled. On a secure OS (like Linux - which ALWAYS turns the serial off, BTW), this isn't a problem. On Windows, it's pretty much pointless to turn the number off (a line in AUTOEXEC.BAT could probably grab the number before Windows loads, and before it is turned off).
We should start advocating NT as a force for peace since if all governments use it then their networks will be so unstable that the missile and other weapon systems will crash before being able to fire.
Governments occasionaly listen to experts and take their advice. It's rare, but it sounds like the EU has done just that.
Regarding irradiated foods, in his book, Optimum Sports Nutrition, Michael Colgan (PhD, MD) mentions irradiated foods briefly.
He didn't know if they would be bad or not. So he asked five radiologists he knew: "Would you eat irradiated food?"
4 said "no"
1 said "only if there was nothing else available"
Michael Colgan is a human body and nutrition hacker. Big time.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
It might be prudent to consider who is protecting the rights of US citizens in the electronic age. Certainly not the Bill of Rights. The founding Fathers could not have forseen the current situation and there is no Common or Statute Law in the US to protect Joe Public. TRUSTe, give me a break they are not even a huge joke - just a little one! Wake up! you have no important rights for the moders age and Europe is trying to encourage your government in this direction because US voters have failed and it is in our (EU and US) mutual interest to have personal rights. Before US /.ers sink further into their ignorant isolationism some rational thought is required - if that is at all possible?? Free trade?? the US is the last country on earth to talk with any moral authority about free trade. Anything which maintains or reinforces US advantage in every area of human endeavour is free trade. Well, after waiting for Britain to be on her knees in 1942 before "comming over to save Europe from itself" (an oft quoted and ill informed view), ensuring that the total wealth of the nation was bled dry, and by loans that made Shylock seem like a charitable institution, the free gifts of all our technology from Radar, to Sonar, the Jet engine, Neuclear energy, etc etc. Just what Has the US given to the world??? Please don't say the microprocessor - that chessnut has been beaten to death. For the great number of citizens who do not know where Europe is - it is standing right behind you ready to kick you in the arse. With a larger population, larger GDP, more original thought, etc etc - the only way the US can retain any form of standing in the 21 Century is by the US version of free trade. Well, guys, sorry to dissapoint you, but if you continue in this vain I recommend that you stick your heads between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye. I thought since my post graduate days in the US things might have changed - they seem to have got(ten) worse. Get with the programme and join the world - if not, who knows what might happen.
Well, a piece of software can certainly generate a 128 bit number. Uniqueness, on the other hand, is tricky. Most software that wants to do this (e.g. mailers, news clients, etc) will generate a pseudo-unique string/number by catenating lots of non-unique information, thus reducing the likelyhood of a collision. There is no standard way that everyone does this, and most software has no need to. One excellent example is Web browsers. The only time that, say, Netscape generates a pseudo-unique ID is when it wants to send mail or news. If the P3 becomes common, though, won't people like Netscape and Microsoft be tempted to offer Web site developers a "standard" way to identify customers? This is the concern. Not that having an ID causes your heart to explode in your chest, but that software companies, having an easy way to identify you, will. This sort of behavior has many precidents, so it's not very hard to believe that it would happen. MS and Prodigy are two classic offenders, but there were many others that were not so well publicized. Once this sort of tracking becomes common, anyone snooping on the traffic (oh look, it comes back to the NSA) would be able to start identifying the source of a session, even though dynamic IP addresses and moving a laptop around might mask every other way of identifying the user.... Now, what you have to ask yourself is if this will only be used for "good". Will the organizations that read your mail avoid using it for business advantage, military knowledge (if you think that's impossible from unclassified communications, ask around about what the collage project was), etc? This is all already possible, but the unique ID, coupled with some unfortunate tendancies in the software industry will make it that much easier, and this is, apparently, not where the EU wants to go today.
So what if there was an instruction to 'ping' your motherboard chipset. Would not be much different to MAC number. The good old bios has room for me to write a 1Mb program/virus on motherboards . think about it. - enough to transmit something before anything. Is anyone looking/expecting things like this? Perhaps the video bios, or MB bios could be programmed to do wicked things, or inspect whats in the clock chip. The keyboard controller. Then the software may do wicked things, or - fail to protect adequately. I suggest journalists and porn purveyors regularly swap/rotate their cpus. Make legal cases unstuck, as , so far, you do not have to register to own a cpu/ os -- YET. Lord help evil software companies that demand I re-install every thing if I just replace my CPU. Oh for the Z80, it had a refresh counter, that the sinclair used as a base for it RPN. Rather than to expose a few more hw registers - someone used a different approach - Intel has an easy way out - just make a EU chip with a fixed serial number like EUROPEAN. That way American banner ads will have the sense not to bother. EU is not banning the chip, just making sure privacy is taken seriously.
Hate to bring this up, but how sure are we that AMD chips dont have any identifying features like the serial number? This may just be a thing that could be considered bad publicity.
(Note: for purposes of this message I'm using "England" to mean the entire United Kingdom, sue me)
Although most Americans think primaraly about England when they think of Europe, this does not mean England is the only thing in Europe. It doesn't even mean England is the most economicly, or technologicaly advanced country in Europe. Americans think of England first for two main reasons:
1. Few Americans fleuently speak a forign language. Thus they tend to communicate with people who speak their native language, even if they don't speak it right... (note the bitter irony)This is, IMO, due to a sense of ethnocentricity that had gotten the rest of the world a little upset at them.
2. Americans fought the revolutionary war against the English, as this is the first most children hear about a European country, the idea of England=Europe sticks in their mind.
Please not however that in terms of economy Germany leads Europe. When the Euro was being disscussed, so powerfull was Germany's economic power, many refered to the Euro as "A thinly disguised Deutschmark." Also, in most of Europe German is considered the language of international buisness. (Unless the buisness is with Yanks, in which case they speak `Merican (not to be confused with English). There is no more logical language for a source such as this than German. Sorry to dissapoint you.
(Also as far as most political and economic trends, England is, and has nearly always been, as seperate idiologicly from the rest of Europe as it is physicly. (For those of you who don't know even this much, the U.K. is an island kingdom.))
www.dictionary.com doesn't agree with your definitions. You should email them now and tell them they need to change their definitions. embargo (m-bärg o)[the o should be long, but I cannot get that character to display correctly] n., pl. embargoes. 1.A government order prohibiting the movement of merchant ships into or out of its ports. 2.A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation: an embargo on the sale of computers to unfriendly nations. 3.A prohibition; a ban: an embargo on criticism.
Prehaps this is the end to a post that started out "ok" but needed in name calling and comment's about the cool shape??
Damn, I won't buy a P3 but my dumb friend will. It's a intel and AMD isn't as fast.... BLAH!!
MarNuke
Intel has long attempted to use monopoly power, and this time they might succeed. Buisnesses would go for this sort of thing. The only real solution I can see is if someone comes up with a way to specify what number is sent out. If I can fake anybody's serial number then it isn't useful for E-buisness to use it. I don't have a PIII (nor will I ever most likely), but I can't concieve of a way to do an internet protocol in such a way that one couldn't send out fake serial numbers, so I just hope that if this thing ever starts to catch on with buisnesses that someone out there will reverse engineer it and write something to fake it (and hopefully congress/the EU won't be a bunch of idiots and outlaw reverse engineering by then, but that's another rant.)
That is precily the point you idiot.
The key usually is tied to YOUR hardware(like serial numbers documents, etc).With the PIII-serial, the software companies have a VERY easy way to make a unique ID which can track you down very easily.The point is that it makes a software maker's job very trivial on creating that key. You can go shove off 1000 bux for example to buy the next super-dooper X package. That X-package's serial is tied down to your PIII-serial. Next if you upgrade the cpu you kiss 1000 bux down the drain. And that's just an example. Think of what else can be done.
This is *exactly* why I insisted on getting a Pentium II instead of a Pentium III on my new system this summer - I'll be damned if I let Andy Grove or anyone else be able to identify my physical system (as opposed to picking out my spot on the net).
His son, however, being a Loyalist, left the US after the Revolution. This may be one reason he never became President. (You guys picked MADISON?????? What were you, drunk? OK, so Franklin had more illegitimate kids than a certain former Arkansas Rhodes Scholar, or Elvis, but he was the best diplomat in US history and certainly was the second best writer after Jefferson) End of rant. (p.s. I'm Canadian and well aware Franklin would have tried taking over the rest of British North America)
Oh, they did. There used to be tins prominently marked:
LEAD PAINT LASTS
It did, too - it faded much more slowly than the non-lead-based version.
All ethernet cards have 'privacy-fouling' unique identifiers. Shall these be banned too?
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Europe is not a police state. Its very liberal. I dont want some Gimpy CIA or FBI person peering over my shoulder. I'd be pissed off at my own government for doing it let alone another country's! I can't beleive how much america has really gone downhill. You might as well knock down the statue of liberty, it doesn't seem to represent your country anymore.
IIRC irradiation not only kills anything, but also causes the formation of bucketloads of radicals, whic are probably A Bad Thing (implications in cancer, aging etc etc).
Surely it would be safer to ban the hormones until proven safe, than risk people's health. This makes more sense than allowing a possibly use of dangerous hormones, and then banning them when found to be harmful.
When people's health or lives are at stake a 'guilty until proven innocent' situation sounds much more preferable than deaths or injuries.
"This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot."
EU people doesn't have the same US low quality standards when it comes to food.
If the P3 generated truly random noise, you could just burn 600MB of it onto a CD and give a copy to your friend.
Just xor your docs with the file and you can transfer 600MB of documents - unbreakable.
I can imagine the NSA would be pretty scared of that.
"Taste, maybe. Technical knowledge - no." Hmmm....let me see the first 2 computers in the world where made in europe (germany, england), the first programming language (Germany), the first microcomputer(france), first multiprosessor computer etc etc etc....yes obviusly no technical knowledge ower there.
The trains DO run on time over here, almost all the time. So there ;)
The truely prosperous EU countries do not have such laws.
What are the truely prosperous EU countries? Which ones are they? The only country which is lax on these privacy issues that I know of is UK, and they're not the most prosperous. Just in the average, most likely.
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It is significantly harder to get credit anywhere in Europe, more so in countries which are 'stricter'.
WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU INVENT THIS PIECE OF CRAP????
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Umm GM food... why would we not eat that... can it have something to do with toxic tomatoes... I myself would not eat the toxic GM tomatoes. I wouldn't consider eating any GM food until you know what every little strain of DNA means.
Take your damn American free maket and shove it up you butt!
As other people here pointed out, there are more long term things to worry about with regards to nature and human health. Nature is a really complex system. I don't mean to go all "Gaia" on you here, but fact is that if you pull one thread, you don't know what will happen somewhere else in 10 years or so. Take for instance the (maize?) crop which AFTER they had been "exhaustively tested" and declared safe by American scientists was discovered to kill off a species of butterfly. Oops. Perhaps we Europeans are right to err on the cautious side? "Gene hopping" has been documented as happening, and as we include human related genes in animals (for instance creating cows that create milk that contain medicines, or pigs that create...something...was it insulin?) we increase the risks that species skipping diseases or other unforseen consequences occur.
What I especially worry about is the fact that companies are even more shortsighted than your average consumer. It doesn't care about biodiversity. It doesn't care about ethics, it only cares about profit. Luckily there finally was an outrage when companies had planned to introduce the new genetically crippled crops. Smart idea, and really scary consequences. The crops are unable to live more than a year, and the seeds are not fertile. By selling these seeds to, in the first stages, third world farmers at an enourmously reduced price these crops would crowd out the natural crops which give less output but whose seeds can be used to plant next years crop. When the farmers are hooked, the company has a sure steady supply of income. If the farmers refuse to pay what the company demands, they would instantly be screwed. (And you thought Microsoft forced Office upgrades were scary?) But what happens in 500 years when we have replaced all "natural" vegetation bred by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to survive with our own instantly manufactured kind bred to serve us? If the human race goes, so would life on earth in a year because we wouldn't be here to manufacture next years crop.
What it finally brings down to is a different view of nature and our place in things. Americans seem to have no ethical doubts about twisting nature so that its whole existance is to provide us with more food to gorge on. I think we have reached a point now. We are already overcrowded as we are. Will we start to take responsibility for our reproduction and consumption and help third world countries do the same (higher living standards means falling nativity rates) or will we begin to change nature so that we can continue to breed like roaches until we cover the whole surface of the planet?
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Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
America is a good neighbour to other countries?
You've gotta be fscking kidding! Amercia bombs the shit out of anybody it wants, on the most spurious of grounds. Whilst I feel little sympathy for the Taliban, since enforcing religous practices on pain of death is just plain wrong in my book, I do feel sympathy for the Sudanese deprived of their major source of medicine. And no. There has been no evidence offered, let alone anything at all credible, that these groups had anything to do with those US embassy bombings.
On-topic though, anonymity is important. Threatening the ability to remain anonymous when you protest about the unethical actions of authoritarian power, be it government or private industry, is an implicit threat to track us down and punish us for doing so.
You might think you're not doing anything wrong, but I'm sure those Sudanese medical factory workers felt so too. And before you bring up the same for those killed in the US embassies, they were there by choice, enforcing genocidal American foreign policy. Fsck them.
-- "This is the Space Age, and we are Here To Go" - W.S.Burroughs
First of all, a news flash folks: This is not new. Unique serial numbers have been present in such things as VAX architectures, SPARC CPUs and other high-end processing components for _decades_.
What are they used for? Very simple: Software licenses. If you have a really expensive server software package, and you want to make sure it's only running on the computer it was licensed to run on, you can check the CPU ID against the license code, and tell whether somebody's put it on a different machine or not. This technique has been used by all kinds of high-end server software for a long time, and is beloved by many of the software companies that create such software, which is why they prefer SPARC machines and other systems with this sort of capability built in, and in turn is why Sun, DEC, and others had been able to dominate the "glass-house" 'mainframe' server market (because their machines were the ones the software was made for).
Intel has wanted to break into that market for a long time, and with their later Pentium models, they finally had some x86-compatible CPUs which had enough horsepower to conceivably do it, but they needed to attract the software vendors who made the high-end applications that people were currently using other architectures to run, and the software vendors wanted to be able to do per-CPU licensing, which meant Intel had to put some sort of unique IDs in their CPUs, or they just weren't going to get the buy-in.
Of course, saying "Now high-end software vendors can license their software the way they want" isn't exactly a sexy marketing slogan for Joe Average User out there, so Intel needed to come up with an ostensible reason for this unique ID which might actually help sell their chips in other markets too, which meant these days that it had to have something to do with the net. "I know," they said, "everybody's doing e-commerce these days, and they've had this 'security' thing drilled into their heads, we can tell them this can be used for secure net stuff. That'll sell chips!"
Needless to say, that backfired a bit when the privacy nuts (and I do mean nuts) out there latched onto this with no facts or understanding of what such a number would actually mean (hint: it's the software, stupid) to privacy online, and, well, now it looks like they've conned an entire continent into believing the stupidity of it all..
Oh well..
Heh.
This is untrue. There's no way code can be tagged to a processor serial, just by the processor.
It's the compiler doing so. The same as with any other serial.
A pentium processor takes a 32 bit word, processes it, and writes it to memory. Fetch, decode, write. That's it!
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the pun is mightier than the sword